16 lack historical fic-lack historical ONTINUED ON PAGE ON ONTINUED arl L. Hart’s Hart’s L. arl C B C , ich Cohen on being being on Cohen ich US R ames Comey, Leonora Carrington Carrington Leonora Comey, ames J OLD WARRIORS OLD LUS EGALIZE (ALL OF) IT OF) (ALL EGALIZE nd the latest thrillers latest the nd dad hockey Drug Use for Grown-Ups” for Use Drug a L C a P “ Meeting yourself in media is no guarantee yourself Meeting I en- before wounds my I double-checked y Robert Jones Jr. HE PROPHETS HE OR ME, FOR YOU, FOR FOR YOU, FOR ME, OR T B Sons. $27. Putnam’s G.P. 388 pp. F tion can salt real wounds both fresh and inher- both fresh wounds salt real tion can hour of mother’s my ited. I’ll forget never the film of “The after she saw adaptation tears stone of us waiting Or the row U Give.” Hate trying to steady our still theater, in the movie af- funeral, a pew at a well-cast weeping, like stepfa- Or my Station.” ter seeing “Fruitvale by down broken stern shoulders ther’s and of water nightmares or the real “Selma”; books, or the movies, after “Beloved”; scars handle really “I can’t because avoided shows thing right now.” another slavery will In- be kind or wanted. that the mirror your- catch you often a jagged glass stead, it’s when And even you. it catches self in before still warm coming, the blood’s it’s know you I to witness and sharp. What of me, of us, was of Robert the debut novel in “The Prophets,” set on an antebellum in plantation Jr., Jones Mississippi? of to be aware wanting novel, Jones’s tered to I wanted raw. numb and where I was where and hopefullybe good to myself fair to a book I and implications. at with baggage arrived Here Is The Fire Now By Danez Smith SIMONE MARTIN-NEWBERRY JANUARY 2021 17, *1HB1*

Book Review JANUARY 17, 2021 THE INSPIRATION FOR THE ORIGINAL FILM STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN, RALPH FIENNES, AND LILY JAMES

Fiction 14 NINE DAYS The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life 1 THE PROPHETS and Win the 1960 Election By Robert Jones Jr. By Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick Reviewed by Danez Smith Reviewed by Raymond Arsenault

7 Thrillers 15 ALL LARA’S WARS Reviewed by Sarah Lyall By Wojciech Jagielski Reviewed by Steven Lee Myers 12 THE REVOLUTION ACCORDING TO RAYMUNDO MATA 22 The Shortlist By Gina Apostol The Pandemic Economy Reviewed by Randy Boyagoda Reviewed by Zachary Karabell

12 THE HEARING TRUMPET By Leonora Carrington Children’s Books Reviewed by Blake Butler 18 GONE TO THE WOODS 15 THE PUSH Surviving a Lost Childhood By Ashley Audrain By Gary Paulsen Reviewed by Claire Martin Reviewed by Jarrett Krosoczka

17 HADES, ARGENTINA 18 WHAT’S THE MATTER, MARLO? By Daniel Loedel By Andrew Arnold Reviewed by Benjamin Nugent BEAR ISLAND By Matthew Cordell 17 THE LIAR’S DICTIONARY Reviewed by Sydney Smith By Eley Williams Bestselling author of A Very English Scandal Reviewed by Patricia T. O’Conner Features “A true-life chronicle that delves

Nonfiction 6 By the Book into the secrets of the heart.” Susan Minot — WALL STREET JOURNAL 8 DRUG USE FOR GROWN-UPS Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear By Carl L. Hart 13 Essay Reviewed by Casey Schwartz Listen for the Music “Shimmers with longing By S. Kirk Walsh and regret...beautifully made 9 SAVING JUSTICE Truth, Transparency, and Trust 23 Sketchbook and quite wonderful.” By James Comey By Leanne Shapton and Teddy Blanks Reviewed by Joe Klein — NEWYORKTIMESBOOKREVIEW

10 I CAME AS A SHADOW Etc. An Autobiography By John Thompson with Jesse Washington 4 New & Noteworthy Reviewed by Jason Zengerle 5 Letters 19 Best-Seller Lists 11 PEE WEES Also available Confessions of a Hockey Parent 19 Editors’ Choice By Rich Cohen 20 Inside the List as an e-book from Reviewed by Mark Rotella 20 Paperback Row Other Press 14 AFTERSHOCKS By Nadia Owusu Reviewed by Fahima Haque OTHER PRESS OTHERPRESS.COM TO SUBSCRIBE to the Book Review by mail, visit nytimes.com/getbookreview or call 1-800-631-2580

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 3 A Special Edition On Sale Now New & Noteworthy

HOMO IRREALIS: ESSAYS, by André Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) In this col- lection, the author of “Call Me by Your Name” Uncover and other novels contemplates the life of the imagination, and the ability to hold competing Your Path realities simultaneously in mind.

FAUST, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsvath and Frede- to Success rick Turner, with illustrations by Fowzia Ka- rimi. (Deep Vellum, paper, $15.95.) A new translation gives readers occasion to revisit the classic and timeless story of ambition and moral compromise.

DISPATCHES FROM THE RACE WAR, by Tim Wise. (City Lights, paper, $17.95.) Drawing on events from the killing of to the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, Wise calls to account his fellow white citizens and exhorts them to combat racist power structures.

VINELAND REREAD, by Peter Coviello. (Colum- bia University, paper, $20.) Coviello, an Eng- lish professor at the University of at , argues that Thomas Pynchon’s nov- el “Vineland” is an underrated masterwork of political comedy and humanism.

WRITING THE VIRUS, edited by Andrea Scrima and David Dario Winner. (Outpost19 Books, paper, $18.50.) Early in the pandemic, the liter- ary journal StatORec invited writers to de- scribe what they were going through. This an- thology gathers 31 of their responses.

WHAT WE’RE READING

More than ever, I’ve been using music as a buf- fer, when needed, against the outside world. In that vein, I finally cracked open TESTIMONY, Robbie Robertson’s autobiography. A big fan of the Band, I was eager to learn more about the roots of the group’s singular sound. As history, the book delivers. Sure, there is plenty of Dylan With stories on building the ideal skill set, profiles in leadership and — and the Big Pink section is especially strong — but there is also stirring examples of those who broke the mold, this special edition will lots of great stuff about obscure early episodes and encounters, musical and not, that helps illuminate the origins of songs that help you be a motivator, build results and succeed. made characters like Virgil Caine and Crazy Chester indelible — and illustrate how much hard work was involved. Still, I find Rob- Leadership special edition is now available ertson less likable as the book proceeds (granted, likability is not a from your favorite retailer, magazine.store, or .com key rock ’n’ roll attribute) and sense a creeping defensiveness that is surely tied to his being just one side of the story. Levon Helm tells another in “This Wheel’s on Fire.” That’s next on my list. ©2020 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved. —ED SHANAHAN, METRO REPORTER AND SENIOR STAFF EDITOR

4 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 Letters

to this notion when he states that “conservatism is by its nature NEW FROM THE EDITORS OF specific and local,” but stops THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE there. It seems clear to me that , who, even as president, carefully tended to his relationships with his wife and children, attended church regu- larly and allowed his thought- fully considered decisions and opinions to be influenced by the wisdom of others, is a far more conservative man than Donald Trump. Perhaps the most ironic de-

SHIVANI PARASNIS basement of the idea of con- servatism is seen through the prism of environmentalism. Exclamation Point liberal democracy expends great What could be more conserva- energy attempting to erode is the tive than the desire to preserve TO THE EDITOR: claimed supremacy of religion, in and protect nature? Even the Too bad W. S. Merwin isn’t particular Christianity; the insu- very terms, conservatism and around to take the other side larity of a community; a sense of conservation, share etymological regarding Elisa Gabbert’s effu- collective intolerance; exclusion; roots. sive praise of “punctuation as a truncated meaning and false superpower and a secret weap- security. All of which stand at the PETER BURWASSER on” in her Jan. 3 On Poetry col- door, rifle in hand, against a more PHILADELPHIA umn. Merwin stopped punctuat- perfect union. Lots to Celebrate ing his poems in 1988. He said SUSAN E. MULLENDORE that he felt that punctuation TUCSON, ARIZ. TO THE EDITOR: “stapled” the language to the ♦ In her Dec. 27 letter to the editor, page. “I think punctuation is Jessica Benjamin writes, “I im- prose. We don’t punctuate our TO THE EDITOR: plore you: Stop featuring celebri- speech, and we don’t punctuate In the second paragraph of his ties in your By the Book column.” when we sing,” Merwin said. review of “Conservatism,” An- I implore you: Don’t stop. Al- “Poetry always has to have one drew Sullivan writes, “A defense though the word “celebrity” has foot in song and in speech.” of the status quo against disrup- over time become associated While I do not agree that all tion comes naturally to anyone with glossy entertainment, it in punctuation ought to be removed truly comfortable in the world.” A fact refers to a person, in any from poetry — periods, commas dozen pages later, in the second field (including writing, by the and a rare exclamation mark are paragraph of her review of Ra- way), who is celebrated. Kurt really all poets need — I do think chel Holmes’s new biography, Vonnegut once argued that writ- that poetry ought not be written “Sylvia Pankhurst,” Francesca ers should emerge from every- with a staple gun. Wade repeats the following quote where, not just literature pro- J. R. SOLONCHE from Pankhurst’s address to the grams. Yo-Yo Ma was one recent BLOOMING GROVE, N.Y. court during her 1921 sedition “celebrity” whose By the Book trial: “It is wrong that people like entry I found captivating. Ma, a What Is Conservatism? you should be comfortable and Harvard graduate, is as expan- well fed, while all around you sively bookish and as intellectu- TO THE EDITOR: people are starving.” (Italics in ally curious as any literary don. When reality is surreal, Based on Andrew Sullivan’s fine both quotes mine.) Groucho Marx once said that review of “Conservatism,” by I could hardly offer a more he found television to be educa- only fiction can make sense of it. Edmund Fawcett (Jan. 3), I’m eloquent or compelling explana- tional; whenever someone looking forward to reading it. tion of my quarrel with conserva- turned on the TV, he’d go in 29 new stories from Margaret Atwood, Colm Tóibín, However, he did slide in one tism than that conveyed by the another room and open a book. sentence I can’t let pass without juxtaposition of these two sen- He dropped out of school early Karen Russell, Tommy Orange, Leïla Slimani, correction. In commenting on tences. on, but was a lifelong bookworm. David Mitchell, Rachel Kushner, Edwidge Danticat, Burke’s work, Sullivan states, GAYLORD BRYNOLFSON If you read “The Groucho Let- Charles Yu, and many more “But what liberal democracy EVANSTON, ILL. ters,” you will encounter what an eroded — the authority of reli- autodidact this nimble word- ♦ gion, the coherence of a commu- smith was. What I wouldn’t give nity, a sense of collective belong- TO THE EDITOR: to hear his responses to By the ing, home, meaning and security Andrew Sullivan’s review of Book questions. ALSOAVAILABLEASANEBOOKANDANAUDIOBOOK — could prompt far more radical “Conservatism” serves as a DAVID ENGLISH responses.” That would be an reminder of the utter meaning- ACTON, MASS. appalling indictment of liberal lessness of that term in contem- democracy, if it were true. What porary America. Sullivan alludes [email protected]

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 5 THE MAGNIFICENT By the Book BRIDGES OF NEW YORK CITY As far as comfort is concerned, I know I will always find the pleasure of laughter when I read David Sedaris. As a writer, he gets better and deeper. Other excellent comic writers always guaranteeing pleas- ure are Patty Marx and Sloane Crosley. Being funny is not only hard but perhaps the most powerful thing of all.

What’s the last book to make you laugh? “The African Svelte: Ingenious Mis- spellings That Make Surprising Sense,” by Daniel Menaker. With drawings by the excellent and inspiring Roz Chast. Blun- ders in language are always delightful to me — unintentional poetry! I also weep as I laugh because this was written by my friend and editor who died this fall and one I hadn’t read when he was alive New York’s Bridges and it is so hilarious that I wish I could As you’ve never tell him. And also weep as I laugh. Seen them before! Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you? I like Henry Green’s description of prose “Your dedication to as being “an intimacy between strang- ers.” So I am brought closer to every your topic of bridges author I read. And yet neither of us ever has produced some knows it. amazing images.” What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently? Anne Adams-Helms That in 1923 wild animals in Tibet ap- proached humans because they were not “Anyone can snap a hunted. That in 1966 Elvis Presley re- photograph of a bridge. corded Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Susan Minot Time” before Bob Dylan released his own It takes the lifelong version. That in 1914 the chances of a boy dedication of a true artist The author, most recently, of the collection ‘Why I Don’t Write: And in Britain between the ages of 14 and 24 to accomplish a goal such Other Stories’ finds comfort in comic writers: ‘Being funny is not only surviving the coming war were one in as this.” three. hard but perhaps the most powerful thing of all.’ “This book has incredible Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about? lush photos. The Author What books are on your night stand? Conquest of Everest,” by Wade Davis, had amazing access and Women’s experience. That is, their real That would be sprawled on the floor. which tracks the extremes of human photographed all the cool experience. Then we would find out if “Elvis and Gladys,” by Elaine Dundy; behavior; “A Judgement in Stone,” by details and perspectives.” Muriel Rukeyser was right: “What would “Three of a Kind,” novellas by James M. Ruth Rendell, a briskly and entertain- ingly told story of the evils of illiteracy happen if one woman told the truth about Cain; “The Paintings of Charles Burch- her life? The world would split open.” “Aside from the stunning field”; “The Lost Pianos of Siberia,” by masquerading as a murder mystery. photos the book also Sophy Roberts; “Abroad: British Literary Are there any classic novels that you only What’s the best book you’ve ever re- details a brief history Traveling Between the Wars,” by Paul recently read for the first time? ceived as a gift? along with bridge specs Fussell; “100 Years of the Best American So many! But the first that comes into Short Stories,” edited by Lorrie Moore “Can You Forgive Her?,” by Anthony for each of the spans. ” my head: “Warriors: Life and Death and Heidi Pitlor; “The Hat on the Bed,” Trollope (I listened to the audio), where I Among the Somalis,” by Gerald Hanley. A stories by John O’Hara; “An Alphabet for was delighted to find some metafictional beautiful stark book. It helped that I “ A book for bridge lovers, Gourmets,” by M.F.K. Fisher; “Light narrative intrusion in an otherwise con- loved the man who gave it to me. engineers and New York Thickens,” by Ngaio Marsh; “Marilyn: ventional narrative. City devotees alike. Norma Jean,” by Gloria Steinem. I am not What do you plan to read next? A poetic view of structures at my usual bedside because of the pan- Describe your ideal reading experience. and landscape and sky.” demic, but permanently there are the Holding in my hand a good book made “Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. essays of Montaigne, and Ralph Waldo out of paper. Anywhere. Democracy,” by Darryl Pinckney. His is a Emerson, plus Laozi’s “Tao Te Ching,” all brilliant mind which can make simple the AVAILABLE AT excellent for steadying reference. Do you have any comfort reads, or guilty complicated, then show how complex the simple. WWW.DAVEFRIEDER.COM pleasures? Plus more in those books on the floor What’s the last great book you read? One should never be guilty about read- AND AMAZON by my bed. 0 Have read a few. “Caste,” by Isabel Wilk- ing! It’s a tyranny to make readers be- erson, which shines a stunning light on lieve there is anything they are supposed racial issues from a new angle; “Into the to read or not read. As Faulkner said, An expanded version of this interview is Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Read! Read everything! available at nytimes.com/books.

ILLUSTRATION BY JILLIAN TAMAKI 6 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 THRILLERS / BY SARAH LYALL Knives Out

IT’S STILL DARK! give the gift But here are death.” skill in synthesizing disparate some thrillers to help with all the Here at the possibly haunted threads and a talent for resisting time we are spending indoors. Greybrooke Manor in Nilgiris, a the insults of the requisite police dozen guests have gathered at the officer assigned to the case. of love THE TITLE of the Australian writer invitation of Bhaskar Fernandez, Jane Harper’slatest novel, THE an eccentric patriarch whose THE OPENING SCENE of Una Man- SURVIVORS (Flatiron, 374 pp., squabbling extended family is nion’s A CROOKED TREE (HarperCol- $27.99), refers to two things. The tediously dependent on his lins, 320 pp., $27.99) will strike fear first is a sculpture memorializing largesse. Bhaskar is convinced into the hearts of any former a shipwreck whose ghostly re- that someone is trying to kill him children hose had-it-up-to-here mains lie off the coast of Evelyn and has included on his guest list parents ever threatened to kick Bay, a tiny summer community in Harith Athreya, a canny private them and their squabbling sib- Tasmania. The second are the detective charged with looking lings out of the car. Driving at traumatized, secrets-harboring into a series of suspicious inci- twilight one day, Faye Gallagher, residents left behind when a dents. To disincentivize any a widowed mother of five, actu- devastating storm killed three of would-be killer, Bhaskar has ally does it: She stops the car five the town’s young people 12 years drawn up two wills allowing for miles from home and leaves her ago. two different possibilities: one if 12-year-old daughter, Ellen, by the After a long exile, Kieran Elliott side of the road. Darkness sets in; has returned to Evelyn Bay with the hours pass. Why hasn’t Ellen his girlfriend and their baby to come home? help his parents move out of the That single shocking moment family house. But it is a compli- reverberates through the book, cated homecoming. Kieran was bringing unexpected conse- indirectly responsible for two of quences for the family and their the storm deaths — one of the neighbors. The menace in this victims was his brother — and moody, meticulously plotted debut there are those who will never lies not in preposterous plot forgive him. Also, there’s a new twists, but within the mysteries of body to contend with, that of a dysfunctional families, close-knit young waitress and art student neighborhoods harboring dark whose drowned corpse is found, secrets and adolescents’ imper- fully clothed, on the beach. In this fect, and sometimes disastrous, tightknit place, everyone is a understanding of the world of suspect, and everyone is grieving, adults. Here are 175 true stories of love, each in one way or another. The book, set during the 1980s, It’s hard to keep track of all the is narrated by 15-year-old Libby, told in 100 words or less. Romantic and relationships — who loved or who desperately misses her fa- platonic, sibling and parental, requited hung around with or betrayed or NISHAT AKHTAR ther, a charming but feckless Irish fought with whom, back when immigrant who was separated and unrequited, lost and found: The Kieran was a teenager and again he dies of natural causes, the from her mother and who has stories are tiny, but the loves they contain now — but it’s worth making the other in the case of his murder. recently died, leaving Libby with are anything but. Honest, funny, tender, effort. Evelyn Bay, utterly de- (Bhaskar is a lover of mysteries a precious gift, “The Field Guide pendent on the sea, is a character and enjoys his little games.) to the Trees of North America.” wise, and always surprising, these of its own. As always, Harper The roads are rendered impass- Living by Valley Forge Moun- ordinary moments burn so bright that skillfully evokes the landscape as able by a landslide. The lights go tain in Pennsylvania, Libby takes they reveal humanity, and our own selves, she weaves a complicated, ele- out. Greedy relatives and hang- refuge in the woods and in partic- gant web, full of long-buried ers-on circle like so many pira- ular the crooked tree at the heart in their light. secrets ready to come to light. nhas. And before we know it, of a secluded spot she and her there is indeed a murder — but best friend, Sage, call the King- From the editors of the Modern Love “THERE ARE SO many ways to kill,” instead of Bhaskar, the victim is a dom. There she escapes her dys- column in The New York Times. observes a character in RV Ra- guest, an artist with a murky past functional life with an overtaxed man’s A WILL TO KILL (Polis, 282 pp., whose body is found, improbably, mother who offers little in the $26), a modern-day take on the slumped in his host’s motorized way of solace or supervision. classic locked-room murder mys- wheelchair. Who did it? And who The plot unfurls slowly. A vil- tery, transported to a remote killed the second victim, not long lain arrives in the form of a mys- mansion high in the hills of south- after? terious man with long blond hair ern India. “People drown in There seem to be several driving a black Camaro. There’s artisanbooks.com rivers, fall down stairs, have crimes going on at once, and a lot also the unsettling presence of heavy objects fall on them, die of to pay attention to: an art scam, a Wilson McVay, an older boy who Available now wherever books are sold. suffocation in airless rooms or drug ring, the falsification of listens to punk rock, takes drugs dungeons, and even get scared to identities, not to mention a spot of and has a reputation for violence adultery. But Athreya is a fine and lawlessness. Before the story SARAH LYALL is a writer at large at detective with a curious mind, a is over, everyone will have some The Times. cool eye for the chance detail, a growing up to do. 0

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 7 Moral High Ground A scholar of argues for a new understanding of drug use.

By CASEY SCHWARTZ

IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG to get to what is per- haps the boldest and most controversial statement in Carl Hart’s new book, “Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear.” In the prologue, he writes, “I am now entering my fifth year as a regular user.” In all honesty, I don’t know how to feel about this admission. It’s not easy to square all that I’ve learned about this drug with the image I also hold of

DRUG USE FOR GROWN-UPS Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear By Carl L. Hart 290 pp. Penguin Press. $28.

Hart: a tenured professor of psychology at , an experienced neu- roscientist, a father. Hart knows this. He knows about the dis- comfort his readers might feel when they encounter his full-throated endorsement of opiates for recreational use. He offers the information in a spirit of radical trans- parency because he believes that if “grown-ups” like him would talk freely Carl L. Hart about the role of drugs in their lives, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in, a mess brought about by our ruinous drug poli- cies, which have had such profound — and marizes his research findings in this way: users of any drug will not become ad- profoundly unequal — consequences for “I discovered that the predominant effects dicted, he says, putting the figure at those who fall afoul of them. produced by the drugs discussed in this around 70 percent. He sees the “opioid cri- For Hart, it wasn’t always so. Coming up book are positive. It didn’t matter whether sis” as deserving of scare quotes, likening in hard circumstances in Miami, Hart too the drug in question was , co- it to trumped-up drug scares of yore. bought into the widespread belief that caine, heroin, or psilo- “Much of the reporting on opioids is “smoking crack is like putting a gun in your cybin.” The positive effects Hart cites in- bull****,” Hart writes, and doesn’t account mouth and pulling the trigger,” as one par- clude greater empathy, altruism, gratitude for the fact, for example, that many deaths ticularly memorable public service an- and sense of purpose. For Hart personally, declared opioid overdoses are actually the nouncement put it. In 1986, he listened in coming home and smoking heroin at the result of opioids mixed with alcohol or “disbelief” as James Baldwin, his intellec- end of the day helps him to “suspend the other sedatives. tual hero, argued for the legalization of perpetual preparation for battle that goes Journalists writing about drugs are one drugs, believing that the recently passed on in my head,” he writes. of several groups of people that Hart ex- Anti-Drug Abuse Act would be used dis- presses frustration with throughout his proportionately against poor and Black book. Others include members of the psy- people. ‘The predominant effects chedelic community for insisting that their Of course, we now know that Baldwin produced by the drugs discussed “plant medicines” are a “superior class of was right: Our drug policies have resulted in this book are positive.’ drug” and for not coming to the defense of in the wildly disproportionate impris- drugs with more tainted reputations, like onment of Black Americans. As Hart ar- I met Hart once, in 2016, when I inter- PCP. On the list is also his son’s school, col- gues, the drug war has in fact succeeded, viewed him for an article I was writing leagues in the drug research world whom not because it has reduced illegal drug use about Adderall. He told me that for a re- he calls out by name and people who didn’t in the (it hasn’t), but because sponsible adult, it could make more sense engage with his ideas, like Dr. Leana Wen, it has boosted prison and policing budgets, to take a small dose of Adderall than to use who, as the health commissioner of Balti- its true, if unstated, purpose. In his last caffeine — because Adderall has “less calo- more, was apparently unwilling to intro- book, “High Price,” Hart described his ries.” At the time, I was struck by his can- duce drug-safety testing to bring down the evolving views on drugs and those who use dor. Now I understand that this is his driv- number of overdoses in the city, as Hart them, a gradual rejection of the overly sim- ing purpose: to demystify drugs, to advo- had suggested to her. “Thankfully for the plistic idea that drugs are inherently evil, cate for the right to “the pursuit of pleas- people of Baltimore,” he writes, Wen left to the destroyers of people and neighbor- ure” enshrined in the Declaration of become president of Planned Parenthood. hoods. Independence itself. “Less than a year later, she was fired. I Here, Hart goes quite a bit farther. He Hart’s argument that we need to drasti- wish I could say I’m surprised.” In these has been studying the neurochemistry of cally revise our current view of illegal moments, Hart’s writing can turn from different drugs for years, including crack drugs is both powerful and timely, but the passionate and moral to what feels like and methamphetamine. He sum- question of addiction lingers in the back- score-settling, undercutting the tenor of ground. It is not one he attempts to resolve. his narrative. But when it comes to the leg- CASEY SCHWARTZ is the author, most recently, In fact, he declares that his book is “una- acy of this country’s war on drugs, we of “Attention: A Love Story.” pologetically” not about addiction. Most should all share his outrage. 0

8 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 PHOTOGRAPH VIA CARL L. HART Honor Code James Comey mourns the decline of personal integrity in government.

Justice could not accept anything short of stories of his own flaws, mixed emotions away without a sound,” Comey writes. “He By JOE KLEIN the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” and humility. His height — 6-foot-8 — could have found a way to speak to the Comey’s view of justice — both the con- makes him testy in cramped spaces. His American people in their language. ... De- IN HIS SECOND DEBATE against Joe Biden cept and the department — is eccles- government salary makes it hard for him partment policy and tradition gave him last October, Donald Trump inadvertently iastical. U.S. attorneys are members of a and his wife to raise five children. Annoyed, plenty of flexibility to speak in the public stated his philosophy of life. The issue was sacred order. They make an unequivocal he throws his daughter’s obnoxious talking interest. He chose not to, and, in the end, refugees. He said that “low I.Q.” immi- vow to tell the truth, and they do so with a doll out the window of his automobile (of the only voices most Americans heard grants were the only ones who abided by certain style: “They were almost always course, he drives back to retrieve it). His were lying to them. No truth, no transpar- the law and showed up for their refugee younger than the other lawyers and stood pursuit of transparency is rigorous to the ency, and Justice paid the price in lost status hearings. A week or so later, The straighter, buttoned their jackets more point of myopia. trust.” Washington Post reported a similar state- quickly, answered more directly, met dead- But, of course, he is right: You can’t have He should talk. It was Comey’s epic mis- ment Trump made when he admitted to lines and admitted what they didn’t know.” a working democracy without an agreed- handling of the email case stiffing his creditors on a Chicago high-rise. In other words, they are the precise op- upon standard of truth. You need a “reser- in 2016 that, arguably, gave Donald Trump He said the chicanery made him the presidency. Comey defends “a smart guy, rather than a bad his Clinton actions in both mem- guy.” oirs. He admits only to sins of A smart guy, according to honesty. The public was clam- Trump, is someone who is wise oring for a judgment. And the enough to cheat. Stupid people F.B.I.’s conclusion, after over- abide by the law and attend whelming work on the case, was their refugee status hearings; that Clinton had been sloppy but not venal. “If we couldn’t prove SAVING JUSTICE bad intent, there was no prose- Truth, Transparency, and Trust cutable case,” he writes. Comey By James Comey chose to announce this dramati- 240 pp. Flatiron Books. $29.99. cally, in public, but not without a bone to his fellow Republicans: Clinton had been “extremely smart ones abscond. Stupid careless,” Comey said. He people pay their debts; smart stewed about the adverb, which ones stiff their lenders and dare turned his report into an op-ed. them to sue. Stupid people be- And then, on the brink of the lieve their elected officials; election, he reopened the case. smart people know the game is A computer containing more rigged. The most distressing as- Clinton emails was found in the pect of Trump’s enduring ap- possession of former Congress- peal, even in defeat, is how man Anthony Weiner, whose many Americans seem to agree wife, Huma Abedin, worked for with him. Clinton. Now, if there ever was a The former F.B.I. director time for transparency, this was James Comey is appalled. In his it. Comey could have said: second attempt at a memoir, “Look, we found no evidence of “Saving Justice,” there is a story criminality in the Clinton case, about a small-time drug dealer and I would be very surprised — named Vinnie who is placed in U.S. Attorney James Comey in his office, December 2002. given the nature of the thou- the federal witness protection sands of emails we’ve read — if program. Vinnie begins his new this new batch proves other- life, falls in love and gets married. The trou- posite of Donald Trump, who demanded voir of trust” in our institutions if the gov- wise. But we’ve got to look at them, and so ble is, Vinnie also was married in his old “loyalty” rather than “honesty” from ernment’s truth-work is to proceed. Con- we will.” Instead, he sent a damning letter life. He now has two wives, which makes Comey, and fired him as director of the spiracy theories about the Deep State are to Congress, announcing that the investi- him a bigamist, which is a crime. “The De- F.B.I. “Saving Justice” is a slight and repet- debilitating. The Justice Department, the gation had been reopened. As Comey partment of Justice has an obligation to tell itive book, but not an insignificant one. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the intelli- might say: No context, no transparency. defendants and their lawyers bad stuff Comey revealed the crucial moments of his gence community have to be perceived as In fairness, there was probably nothing about the government’s witnesses,” Comey confrontation with the president in his 2018 honest to a fault — even about their own that Comey could say about the Clinton writes. This is true, even if the “bad stuff” memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.” They are re- faults. case that would have stanched the “lock has nothing to do with the facts of the case hashed here, but within the context of a her up” conspiracy-mongering. His battle, — Vinnie’s testimony can convict a major larger theme: the national descent from and Mueller’s, is against a powerful sludge- drug dealer — and even if the revelation strict, fact-based truth into a feckless mi- You can’t have a working tide of cynicism that has been flowing, es- might ruin Vinnie’s new happiness, since rage of “truthiness,” to use Stephen Col- democracy without an pecially in the media, for 50 years — and, Wife No. 2 doesn’t know about Wife No. 1. “I bert’s brilliant formulation. Can an institu- agreed-upon standard of truth. for the past four years, from the White felt sorry for Vinnie in that moment,” tion religiously devoted to the truth, like House itself. All politicians are crooked, Comey concludes. “But the truth was more the Justice Department, survive in a de- aren’t they? All politicians lie. important than his pain.” We never learn mocracy where vast numbers of people be- If nothing else, Comey has laid out the the fate of Vinnie’s marriages or the case in lieve that the 2020 election was a fraud? Comey is surprisingly tough on Robert challenge of the next four years. Joe Bi- question — he is, after all, in the witness Comey is a curious figure. He is smart, Mueller. He believes Mueller’s report on den’s quiet humanity will confront a noisy protection program — but Comey ham- admirable, hard-working — and yet Russian interference in the 2016 election is nation where too many citizens have be- mers the larger point: “The Department of slightly smarmy in his rectitude. He begins devastating, but too complicated for mass come so sour that they’ve found solace, and each chapter with a quote from sources consumption. Attorney General William P. entertainment, in an alternative reality. It JOE KLEIN is the author of seven books, includ- ranging from Virginia Woolf to Malcolm X Barr spins up a dust storm of inaccuracies will not be easy to lure them away from ing “Primary Colors,” “Woody Guthrie: A to the inevitable Dalai Lama. He tries to while Mueller “chose to submit his unread- their noxious fantasies, but fact-based Life” and “Charlie Mike.” leaven his supreme pontification with able — and unread — report and then go truth is not negotiable. 0

PHOTOGRAPH BY FRED R. CONRAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 9 Full-Court Pressure John Thompson inspired a mixture of fear and respect in coaches, referees, journalists — even drug kingpins.

school in Washington and later Providence By JASON ZENGERLE College. In the mid-60s he played two sea- sons in the N.B.A. for the Celtics, BY THE TIME he summoned Rayful Ed- backing up Bill Russell. Then Thompson mond to a meeting on an autumn afternoon retired from the N.B.A. “to begin the rest of in 1988, the Legend of John Thompson was my life.” He didn’t expect basketball to be a already large. He was the Black coach of part of it. He returned to Washington and the Black college basketball team that was worked with troubled youths (one later be- equal parts athletic and cultural force. On came a hit man) while earning a master’s the court, Thompson taught his George- degree in education. A small Catholic high town Hoyas to play swarming, suffocating school, St. Anthony’s, hired Thompson to defense. Off the court, he hounded his play- coach its pitiful boys’ basketball team — a ers — who were among the few Black stu- side job that was akin to supervising “an dents at Georgetown — to go to class, keep- after-school gym class.” But then Thomp- ing a deflated basketball in his office to re- son’s competitive juices got flowing, he be- gan combing the city’s playgrounds and I CAME AS A SHADOW Boys Clubs where he had once played for An Autobiography recruits, and before long St. Anthony’s be- By John Thompson with Jesse Washington came a powerhouse. In 1972, Georgetown 337 pp. Henry Holt & Company. $29.99. hired him as its basketball coach. Georgetown was, as Thompson and his fellow Black Washingtonians put it, mind them that their athletic careers “Across the Park” — referring to Rock would eventually come to an end. He Creek Park, which served as the informal brooked no dissent. If an opponent threw dividing line between Black and white an elbow, he didn’t necessarily object to his Washington. The university was notori- players responding with a punch. When a ously inhospitable to Black people, but it reporter asked him how it felt to be the first hired Thompson because of his race — Black college basketball coach to win a na- partly as a realization that it needed to tional championship, he replied that the make amends to Black Washingtonians, question was insulting because it assumed but also in an attempt to improve its bas- other Black coaches hadn’t been talented ketball team, which in turn would raise enough to win it all. Standing 6-foot-10 with Georgetown’s profile. “He knew any suc- a booming voice and an urban dictionary’s cessful team needed Black players,” worth of curse words, Thompson inspired Thompson writes of Georgetown’s dean of a potent mixture of fear and respect in admissions. “He knew I was a Black coach players, coaches, referees, journalists, pro- who had a lot of Washington’s best Black fessors — even drug kingpins. players on my teams. Are you starting to Edmond, at the tender age of 23, was the John Thompson in 1991. get the picture?” biggest dealer in Washing- The plan worked. Thompson turned ton, D.C. His gang made as much as $2 mil- Georgetown into one of college basket- lion a week in sales and was linked to as stay away from my players,” Thompson and would interrupt practice to deliver a ball’s dominant teams, and the university many as 30 murders. Edmond was also a writes. “I’ve always been offended when two-hour lecture about the legacies of Mar- rose to prominence right along with it. Be- big Georgetown basketball fan. When some people assume our interaction had a tin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X — but he tween 1983 and 1986, when Georgetown Thompson learned that Edmond was physical component.” What actually hap- “resented being portrayed as some kind of appeared in two Final Fours and won one palling around with two of his players, he pened, Thompson reports, is that he rea- social worker.” Thompson writes, “I didn’t national championship, applications to the told them to stay away from the drug soned with Edmond and appealed to the want to be equal to the white man, I wanted school increased by 45 percent. Thompson dealer. Then Thompson put out word on drug dealer’s better angels. “I thought of to kick his ass.” In his autobiography, he boasts, not entirely unreasonably, “Bas- the street that he wanted to talk to Edmond Rayful as my neighbor’s child, who was ex- demonstrates that his legend was less than ketball gave Georgetown a national repu- himself. Edmond dutifully showed up at posing my kids to some trouble. I wanted what it was made out to be, and also more tation.” Meanwhile, the Hoyas, with their Thompson’s office, where the coach deliv- to protect my players, my university and — much more. Black coach and their Black players, ered the same no-contact message. Ed- myself. The conversation was between two Thompson grew up in segregated Wash- achieved a different sort of acclaim among mond promised to abide by it. Several Black men from Washington who both ington. His mother was an educator who African-Americans. Thompson recalls the months later, after Edmond was arrested loved basketball, respected each other as couldn’t get a job teaching so she became a many Black people who approached him in on a 39-count federal indictment, Thomp- human beings and had enough intelligence maid; his father couldn’t read or write but, airports and elsewhere to thank him for son went on ABC’s “Nightline” and told to work out a solution to our problem.” His at the tile factory where he worked, “he what he was doing. “More than a few,” he Ted Koppel about the encounter. That’s confrontation with Edmond, Thompson trained every new boss they gave him.” writes, “thought Georgetown was a his- when the Legend of John Thompson — the concludes, “was less than what everybody The only white people Thompson encoun- torically Black college, based on our team. basketball coach who got in the face of an said, and also more.” tered as a child were the nuns and priests That always gave me a good feeling.” infamous drug dealer and told him to keep In “I Came as a Shadow,” Thompson — at the local Catholic school he attended. But there were a lot of hard feelings, too the hell away from his program — grew who was long wary of revealing too much They branded Thompson, who was unable — typically having to do with race. Thomp- even larger. about himself and yet was continually frus- to read, “retarded.” It wasn’t until he went son was protective of his players, many of But in his posthumous autobiography, “I trated about being misunderstood — fi- to public school in sixth grade, where he whom would not have been admitted to Came as a Shadow,” Thompson, who died nally gets to cast his legend on his own was taught by a Black teacher who helped Georgetown but for basketball. He ex- at the age of 78 in August, lets a little air out terms, in all of its contradictions. He was find him a Black reading specialist, that pected them to go to class and get good of that legend, or at least tries to put a dif- someone whose job was to win basketball Thompson began to succeed academically. grades; if they didn’t, he held them out of ferent spin on it. “A myth has grown about games, and who relished his ability to do “Black educators were able to help me,” he practices or games. But Thompson was me threatening Rayful and ordering him to so, but was “paranoid about being ac- writes, “and white ones did not.” loath to let anyone outside his team know. knowledged too much as a coach.” He liked Thompson was a talented basketball “It would have been harmful to expose JASON ZENGERLE is a writer at large for The to remind his players that “far more money player and received scholarships to attend their weaknesses,” he argues. “You think Times Magazine. is made sitting down than standing up” — a predominantly white Catholic high we put a sign on the door saying my father

10 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB STOWELL/GETTY IMAGES couldn’t read? Our neighbors didn’t even Black team from up North, with a big Black squirrels stopped gathering nuts.” Basket- coaches. But when Thompson was raising know.” This led reporters, most of them coach hollering on the sideline?” On other ball fans will relish his stories about coach- a ruckus four decades ago, as a “dark- white, to accuse him of being paranoid or occasions, Thompson worried that Black ing Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, skinned, loud-voiced Black man who re- militaristic — or worse. One branded referees didn’t give him a fair shake be- Dikembe Mutombo and Allen Iverson and fused to be apologetic or grateful for the Thompson “the Idi Amin of college basket- cause they were afraid that “a lot of people his explanation for why Michael Jordan rights God intended him to have,” he often ball.” His teams were invariably described thought Black refs would conspire to help a was left open to hit the jump shot that stood alone. Just as Thompson acknowl- in the press as thuggish and scary. “When Black coach.” His ferocious desire to win helped North Carolina beat Georgetown in edges the people who made his own suc- Bobby Knight’s Indiana team” — which was about more than a mere game. “I knew the 1982 national championship game. And cess possible — “the ones who lived in was disproportionately white — “played that my success or failure would influence Thompson makes news with his an- bondage, or scrubbed toilets when they great physical defense, they were ‘tough,’” opportunities not only for other Black nouncement that he’s come to the conclu- couldn’t teach school, or went to work in- Thompson writes. “When Georgetown coaches, but for Black people in general,” sion that the N.C.A.A. should allow college stead of learning how to read” — today’s pressed full court, we were intimidating.” Thompson writes. “I had to win because basketball players to be paid. socially engaged players and coaches owe The game itself did not always provide a Black people didn’t have the right not to be The greatest value of “I Came as a Shad- him a tremendous debt. refuge. When a white referee named Reg- successful.” ow,” though, is that it offers us one last, Thompson would sometimes find him- gie Copeland made what Thompson felt Thompson (or, perhaps, his co-author, long opportunity to hear Thompson’s sin- self daydreaming about how many more was a bad call that knocked Georgetown Jesse Washington) is a lively and enter- gular voice. Today, with LeBron James championships he could have won if he had out of the N.C.A.A. tournament one year, taining writer. Describing the hush that fell running a voting rights group and Mike focused only on basketball, but he would Thompson wondered if Copeland’s up- over a D.C. playground when Elgin Baylor Krzyzewski recording a Black Lives Mat- quickly push such thoughts out of his mind. bringing in the Jim Crow South had played joined a pickup game Thompson was play- ter video, political activism is almost ex- After all, he writes, “I never had the luxury a role: “What did Copeland think about a ing in as a teenager, he writes, “I think the pected from basketball players and of just being a basketball coach.” 0

Ice, Ice Babies Rich Cohen decodes the culture of youth hockey and considers its impact on parents.

By MARK ROTELLA time one’s kid plays; and verbal tensions often three lines of forwards and two de- His son responds, “Because no matter between parents of opposing teams. “The fensive pairs in youth hockey; the first line where they put me, it’s still hockey.” mildest heckler outdoes Con- is usually the strongest.) Throughout, Co- When Coach Pete disappears for a few “IF THE COACH wants to win more than his necticut’s most vociferous,” Cohen reports. hen inserts himself into Micah’s sport — weeks to attend to family issues, the coach- or her team does, that’s a problem and the “The nastiest are found on Long Island.” cornering coaches, and breaking the rule ing falls to Coach Hendrix, who gives more team is doomed to fail,” says the longtime At the book’s center is the development prohibiting parents from talking with ice time to his daughter, humiliates the coach of my 15-year-old son’s hockey team. of Micah as a hockey player, and Cohen’s coaches for 24 hours after a game. other players and emphasizes winning Rich Cohen might understand. In Cohen’s identity as a type of parent he describes as After Coach Pete moves Micah down to above development. The team starts to thoughtful, lively new memoir, “Pee Wees: “the crazies, the control freaks, the hyper- the third line — ostensibly to help weaker crumble. Confessions of a Hockey Parent,” the involved.” No matter the struggle, Cohen coach-player relationship is almost as im- Tryouts for the Connecticut team shines when he’s exploring hockey portant as the parent-child dynamic. begin in April, with anxious parents history. He describes the annual tour- Welcome to the world of youth hockey in pressing their faces against the glass nament in Lake Placid, N.Y. — a rite of Connecticut — and meet Cohen’s 11-year- or huddling like scouts in the stands. passage for every hockey kid in the old son, Micah. What’s amazing is how uni- At the end of each evening, the par- Northeast — on the rink where, in ents gather in front of a list to see 1980, a team of scrappy U.S. amateurs PEE WEES whether their kid made a team on the defeated legendary Soviets at the first round or will need to return the height of the Cold War. Cohen de- Confessions of a Hockey Parent following night. For the Bears, 200 scribes how Soviet hockey trans- By Rich Cohen kids try out, of whom only 70 will be formed in 1958 under Coach Anatoli 240 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27. placed on teams, ranking from AA Tarasov, who “built his team in the down to B. Micah slips into the A team. style of Russian folkways, influenced The hockey season ramps up in less by dump and chase than by the versal the experiences are for hockey fam- September, and Cohen takes readers Bolshoi Ballet.” ilies: the grueling three-day tryouts (after deep into the lives of team families. Eventually, Cohen asks: “Why did I all, “the team a kid makes will determine We meet a Deadhead parent, a dental care so much about the rise and fall of A youth hockey team prepares for a game. his standing in the youth hockey hierar- hygienist, a beer importer and a a Pee Wee hockey team? Why did I chy”); the early-morning long-haul drives French physicist. Most important, we spend nights on the phone with my fa- to arenas throughout the Northeast for meet the coaches, who have the power to players — Cohen approaches him, dis- ther and other fathers, talking and tex- games; the armchair-coach parents, keep- shape or destroy a player’s confidence. mayed that his son has been assigned a ting?” These are questions he never fully ing track down to the second the amount of There’s a young, talented guy named Pete “crap detail.” addresses, but one can guess the conclu- and two assistant parent-coaches, Ralph “Is Micah having fun?” Coach Pete asks, sion is about wanting his son — and the MARK ROTELLA is the author of “Stolen Figs Rizzo and Alan Hendrix. (Cohen acknowl- and Cohen acknowledges he is. “So what team — to shine. What emerges for Cohen and Other Adventures in Calabria” and “Amo- edges that names, teams and places have do you care? Try to remember what this is in this warmhearted memoir is a love for re: The Story of Italian American Song.” He is been changed, “ditto dates and details.”) about — them, not us.” his son beyond hockey, as well as the ac- the director of the Coccia Institute for the Initially struggling, the team tries to gel On the car ride home, Cohen asks Mi- knowledgment that “there is little to match Italian Experience in America at Montclair under Coach Pete, who adjusts his lines to cah: “Doesn’t it bother you? Why aren’t the intoxication of seeing your child do State University. create the best combinations. (There are you pissed off?” something well.” 0

PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM CLAYTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 11 The Struggle, Annotated Reality Outdone A novel of Philippine history takes a cue from ‘Pale Fire.’ Leonora Carrington’s Surrealist novel upends all expectations.

By RANDY BOYAGODA By BLAKE BUTLER during meals. Her obsession with the painting leads to a 37-page digression that VIRGIL SHOULD OFFER libations to the gods I’VE NEVER HAD a go-to answer for when relates the life and times of Rosalinda Al- in thanksgiving that Gina Apostol writes someone asks, “What’s a great Surrealist varez della Cueva, abbess of the Convent of about the ’ founding stories in- novel?” I’ve always found this nearly cen- St. Barbara of Tartarus, to whom the stead of Rome’s. Her latest novel to appear tury-old subgenre of literature rather Brotherhood is deeply tied. Carrington’s in the United States, “The Revolution Ac- tame, less a transcendence of the known skillful rendition of this embedded story cording to Raymundo Mata,” wreaks play- world than half-baked psychoanalytic play (which itself includes a bizarre retelling of ful and learned havoc on the life and work and veiled romance. Real life is forever the fate of Mary Magdalene and the Holy of the 19th-century writer José Rizal. lurking around the corner, so it seems, Grail) unlocks from the novel the many Apostol seizes on the catalytic relationship lording its narrativizing ways over what fractal worlds hidden within. Soon we’re in between his fiction and the contemporane- might be glimpsed of the Beyond. landscapes populated with orgies, riddles, ous Filipino independence movement, Enter Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), a doppelgängers and stairways to hell, with whose success in ending Spanish imperial British-born Mexican painter and author little time to trace who we were or where rule was qualified by five subsequent dec- who fantastically surpasses her Freud- we’ve been. ades of U.S. involvement. struck, phallocentric contemporaries. Her “Raymundo Mata” was first published in the Philippines in 2009 and won the coun- THE HEARING TRUMPET try’s National Book Award. Since then, By Leonora Carrington Apostol has published two well-received Illustrated. 210 pp. New York Review Books. novels — “Insurrecto” and “Gun Dealers’ Gina Apostol Paper, $15.95. Daughter” — in the United States, where

THE REVOLUTION ACCORDING Though fiercely attached to both men, 1974 novel, “The Hearing Trumpet,” newly TO RAYMUNDO MATA Espejo isn’t particularly worried about reissued, stands out as something at last By Gina Apostol clarifying details related to either Mata’s truly radical, undoing not only our expec- 350 pp. Soho Press. $27. Bildungsroman-like life or Rizal’s passive tations of time and space, but of the psyche involvement in revolutionary politics. and its boundaries. She’s more interested in raging, via anno- “For the last 45 years I have been trying she now lives. She writes historical fiction tations, against the memoir’s English-lan- to get away,” our 92-year-old narrator, Ma- like Hilary Mantel on acid. The result is de- guage translator, a sanguine Cornell grad- rian Leatherby, tells us early on. She manding, confusing, exhausting and im- uate student who goes by the pseudonym knows she’s a liability to her son, Galahad, pressive, and justified, at base, by the ori- Mimi C. Magsalin and describes herself as and his family, who live only for them- gin story of her native archipelagic nation, “not yet a.b.d.” The editor also attacks Di- selves. Nearly deaf, she is gifted a hearing as one of the several voices of this novel ex- wata Drake, a Milwaukee-based psycho- trumpet by her friend Carmella — just in plains: analyst and scholar of Filipino experience time to overhear her family discuss ship- “The American Revolution had farmers who claims she was invited to edit the ping her off to an elder-care institution “fi- and dentists. The French Revolution had a memoir in Espejo’s place after her break- nanced by a prominent American cereal mob of lawyers. down. company (Bouncing Breakfast Cereals “Our prime mover was a poet. The deranged scholarly contours of the Co.)” and portentously known as the Well Leonora Carrington “The Philippines may be the only coun- novel manifest as a short passage per page of Light Brotherhood. try whose war of independence began with from Mata — usually about his reading, his Even after the move, however, our a novel (and a first novel at that) — Rizal’s travels and his intrigues, political and ro- kindly Marian remains buoyant, wide- ‘Noli Me Tangere’ (‘Touch-Me-Not’). mantic — that is otherwise dominated by eyed, ready for life. She continually adapts We are reminded of the power “Our notion of freedom began with fic- multiple, rivaling footnotes. The results to her circumstances, as Carrington builds of fiction to create a gateway to tion, which may explain why it remains an can be both confidently obscure and also layers upon layers with an adeptly shifting a place that wasn’t visible. illusion.” very, very funny, as with Notes 466-469, in point of view. Like captives in a body dou- This account of Rizal’s literary-political which Magsalin and Espejo trade viciously ble that refuses to behave logically, we are significance comes from Estrella Espejo, etymological claims about the gastro-geo- allowed only to look over Marian’s shoul- Thereafter, nothing is the same. In fol- an editor now living in a sanitarium be- political implications of whether Rizal and der as the world changes around her. At lowing the mystery of the Brotherhood’s cause of a particularly trying project. The Mata ate chicken Caesar salad when they first, she finds herself swept up into the origin, Marian finds her mind and memory, novel takes the form of a found memoir by first met in 1896. In other words, like “Infi- psychodrama of a confined tribe of simi- and the entire history of the world, wholly a fictionalized revolutionary named Ray- nite Jest” and “Pale Fire,” Apostol’s novel larly wild-minded female residents, who transformed. The questions that plague mundo Mata, whose idiosyncratic entries adopts absurd premises that are treated are overseen by the cultish and perverted our routine daily lives are broken at last, are analyzed and debated by Espejo and with graven seriousness by wordplay-ob- Dr. Gambit. The doctor’s quasi-Christian replaced with an occasion to see newly, and others in copious annotations, themselves sessed narrators who are equal parts unre- rule of law belies a madcap conspiracy, in- therefore, to rise to heights beyond the prefaced by no fewer than seven introduc- liable and cerebral. volving mind control and poisoned fudge, ceilings of domesticity. tory notes. From an American jail cell, in Apostol also riffs on the Bible, Cervan- that ends up dissolving pretty much every- The result is a mind-flaying master- 1902, Mata chronicles his life story of grow- tes, Voltaire, Joyce and on the most promi- thing we thought we knew about where the piece, held together by Carrington’s gifts of ing up the visually impaired child of pro- nent Filipino writer of the late 20th cen- novel was going. It’s “The Crying of Lot 49” wit, imagination and suspense. We our- vincial theater actors and joining the Fil- tury, Nick Joaquin, among many others. on Ambien, or perhaps “The Magic Moun- selves arrive at the end feeling reconfig- ipino independence movement. The dissi- Vertiginously preoccupied with its own tain” whittled down to a viral nightmare, or ured, as if the book — like “Mount Ana- dents coalesced around Rizal, a novel-writ- textual genealogy and with the Borgesian a shiv. logue,” by Carrington’s fellow Surrealist ing ophthalmologist who assailed Spanish speculations that come of its frenzied nota- The book’s pivot point is Marian’s dis- René Daumal — has only just begun where rule if never outright calling for it to end tions (is Mata’s memoir actually Rizal’s un- covery of an uncanny portrait of a “leering it cuts off. We are reminded, then, of the (his arrest and eventual execution would acknowledged final novel?), the book occa- abbess” who appears to watch over her power of fiction not to reflect or to define, help bring it down instead). sionally seems as if it might have been but to create a gateway to a place that was- more fun to write than to read. But that’s a BLAKE BUTLER is the author of seven works of n’t visible to us before the text, and yet has RANDY BOYAGODA is a novelist and professor of minor footnote to this marvelous welter of fiction and nonfiction, most recently, “Alice always existed just beyond our present re- English at the University of Toronto. Filipino storytelling. 0 Knott.” ality’s dull edge. 0

12 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 PHOTOGRAPHS, FROM LEFT: MARGARITA CORPORAN; EMERICO WEISZ Essay / Listen for the Music / By S. Kirk Walsh How E.L. Doctorow taught an aspiring writer to hear the sounds of fiction.

I WAS BORN with “bad ears.” When I was a child, sum- bedpan. Within an hour, an orderly arrived, asking me if tence structure. In the novel’s first section, Woolf writes mertime swimming often turned into episodes of throb- I had health insurance (I did), and instructing me to go from Bernard’s perspective: “We shall sink like swim- bing eardrums, and I would end up fetal-like on my bed, to another hospital the next day. (More police officers mers just touching the ground with the tips of their toes. my hands cupped over my ears, rocking my body in than doctors populated the hallways of the E.R. at Met- We shall sink through the green air of the leaves, Susan. hope that the movement would somehow diminish the ropolitan.) We sink as we run. The waves close over us, the beech insistent ache. My mom would heat up eardrops and slip The following morning, at NYU Langone Medical leaves meet above our heads.” I became attuned to the the warm liquid down my inflamed ear chute with a Center, a doctor gently threaded my injured arm through cumulative sounds of one sentence after another, and dropper, creating temporary relief from the roar of pain. a cloth sling and wrapped it tightly with a beige bandage how the rhythms and repetitions produced a kind of Tiny plastic cylinders were inserted into my ears on against my abdomen. Except when showering and sleep- symphony that I had never heard before. several occasions with the aim of draining the fluids that ing, the doctor said, I was to keep my arm like this for Here is language, I thought as I read Woolf. Here is life. led to these bouts. Sometimes this worked. Other times it six weeks. If my shoulder healed well, I would move on Perhaps it was synesthesia: I couldn’t write, and this didn’t. to a program of physical therapy. limitation may have opened up another cognitive path- Growing up, I also struggled with learning disabilities: For the rest of the semester, I could no longer write or way in my brain. Or maybe it was the fact that Woolf’s Reading did not come naturally to me. Instead, words type. I told Doctorow about my accident, and he sug- novel is built with a kind of acoustic architecture; the splintered apart on the page, their pronunciation out of gested I continue with the class and hand in the final sounds of her sentences carry the narrative along. Later, reach. When I read to myself, I couldn’t hear my own paper over the summer. It had been a long time since I I read in Elicia Clements’s “Virginia Woolf: Music, voice. For me, the act of reading was like sitting Sound, Language” (2019) that Woolf wrote in a alone in a silent room: Static strands of words cre- letter to Elizabeth Trevelyan, a Dutch musician: “I ated meaning, character and story, but I couldn’t always think of my books as music before I write hear their cadences and rhythms. them.” (In the same book, Clements writes that This changed in the winter of 1995. I was a gradu- Woolf was listening to Beethoven’s late String Quar- ate student in the creative writing program at New tet in B flat major, Op. 130, and that this chamber York University, and you could say I had become a work inspired much of “The Waves.”) I imagine it more active reader: I spent huge amounts of time in was a combination of these circumstances: my libraries and bookstores. I had even started writing broken shoulder and inability to write, Woolf’s a novel, which seemed like a miracle, given my distinctive soundscapes and the critical engage- earlier experiences with language. That semester, I ment that Doctorow was pressing on us. enrolled in “The Craft of Fiction” taught by E. L. During the class in which we presented “The Doctorow. Waves,” Doctorow spoke about how Woolf’s lyricism The first class met at 5:30 on a Monday evening. underscored the march of time in the novel. Like It was late January, and darkness had already Kafka in “The Metamorphosis” and Dante in the seeped into the sky beyond the windows of the arts “Inferno,” he observed, Woolf animated the inevita- and science building on Waverly Place. As Doc- ble movement toward death through her language, torow spoke to us, he leaned against the edge of a the rhythmic resonance of her sentences and her desk at the front of the classroom. Wisps of hair sophisticated narrative structure. The innovative swept across the elegant dome of his balding head. interplay of these elements opened up this path of He wore his circular glasses and a light blue button- meaning for the reader. down shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Each The semester continued: We read Kerouac (and I week, he explained, we would read some of his had a similar aural experience with his stream-of- favorite novels and short stories, following a sort of consciousness, syncopated prose), the stories of “kitchen sink” approach in which we would exam- Jayne Anne Phillips and more. For the final writing ine all aspects of the author’s craft so that we could assignment, Doctorow asked us to choose one of the become better writers ourselves. The reading list works on the syllabus and borrow — or steal — included “The Marquise of O” and “Michael JULIA DUFOSSE from it in a fiction of our own. (For his best-selling Kohlhaas,” by Heinrich von Kleist, “The Waves,” by novel “Ragtime,” Doctorow famously borrowed the Virginia Woolf, and stories by Edgar Allan Poe tent poles for his plot from Kleist’s “Michael (Doctorow was named after Poe). had merely sat in a classroom — and listened. Truly Kohlhaas” and reassembled them with his own version “This isn’t about reading before you go to bed or read- listened. No taking notes. Despite the turn of events, it of the story in New York City at the turn of the 20th ing on the subway,” he said with a soft smile. “This is felt like a luxury to sit back and take in the weekly dis- century.) Not surprisingly, I chose “The Waves”: I cop- about becoming professional readers. This is about craft cussions. ied Woolf’s sentences word for word, then replaced her and narrative. It’s about asking yourself: What can you Along with two other students, I was assigned to give language with my own — and began to understand how I steal from these writers?” a presentation on “The Waves.” We decided to focus on could create my own musical arrangements in my imagi- A month into the semester, I was rollerblading in character development, style and language, and struc- nation and on the page. Central Park with my then boyfriend (now husband), ture. Considered one of Woolf’s most experimental nov- Over time, my hearing has worsened. A year after my Michael. After completing a loop of the park, Michael els, “The Waves” consists of interior soliloquies of six graduation from N.Y.U., my left eardrum was perforated by and I slowly glided down an exit at East 96th Street. childhood friends as they move along the arcs of their another infection and required reconstructive surgery. For Near the bottom of the slight incline, my feet suddenly lives; short descriptive interludes capturing the sun’s the past decade, I have experienced the continuous ring of slipped out from underneath me, and I fell backward progression punctuate the sections, illuminating the tinnitus in that ear and now wear a hearing aid. Yet the onto my shoulder. The pain was electric. Bright and passage of time. sounds of reading are very much alive in my head. Occa- blinding. An ambulance delivered me to the nearest This is when it happened: As I read “The Waves,” I sionally, I’ll commit to memory a poem by one of my favor- emergency room, at Metropolitan Hospital. I was given started to “hear” language as if for the first time. It was ite poets — Marie Howe, say, or Jean Valentine — and for a an injection of Demerol and vomited instantly into a as though a window flew open, and the sounds of the spell I know the sound of her words intimately, almost like author’s words rushed in. I began to notice the sonic a heartbeat. All of this is thanks to Doctorow and what he S. KIRK WALSH’S first novel, “The Elephant of Belfast,” will be patterns of Woolf’s sentences, how she composed a taught me: Read deeply, steal what you can and always published in April. music all her own with her rhythmic language and sen- listen for the music. 0

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 13 The Wanderer A memoirist contemplates what it means to find home.

By FAHIMA HAQUE entire adult life. “Confused?” she asks. herself in an attempt to belong. myself, but he cannot stop me from feeling “Me too. I never know how to answer the In one instance, Owusu details how she sorry for myself.” question of my origin.” betrayed the only other Black girl at the Owusu also writes about the relation- WHERE ARE YOU FROM? If someone were to Owusu’s debut memoir, “Aftershocks,” is Catholic boarding school she attended, ships in her life. She tells us about a man ask, you might cite your current ZIP code or her attempt to explain. making fun of the girl’s hair to the who she thought was her great love in her share where you were raised. You might In “Aftershocks,” Owusu re- white students. “In reality, 20s, and of the foul men who assaulted her mention where your ancestors lived. You flects on her childhood and Agatha smelled like my family,” when she was a child, and of the many hap- might explain whether you grew up rooted her 20s, feeling untethered she confesses. In another, less men she has slept with. But Owusu’s to one cul-de-sac, one city block, one country. from the world. The narra- Owusu recalls feeling con- book is most alive when she writes about But for Nadia Owusu, the question is not tive is straightforward but flicted when her uncle, a cab- her parents. so simple. The daughter of a Ghanaian fa- Owusu uses formats like a driver, drops her off at col- It’s clear that Owusu believes most in resettlement intake form lege. “‘I’m going to college her father, whom she so lovingly called AFTERSHOCKS and symbols like a recycled too,’ he said. ‘Next year. The “Baba-Mama.” Her father died when By Nadia Owusu blue chair found on the cab is only temporary.’ I was Owusu was a teenager, and his death re- 299 pp. Simon & Schuster. $26. streets of New York City to tell embarrassed that he felt the mains a shadow over everything she does. her story. The dominant mo- need to tell me that, that he She was initially told he died of cancer, but tif, however, is an earthquake. Nadia Owusu needed me to know he was when Owusu was 28, her stepmother unex- ther who worked for a United Nations Owusu opens the book with a more than the immigrant man pectedly told her, without proof, that he agency and an Armenian-American chapter titled “First Earth- behind the wheel of a yellow had died of AIDS. It’s an assertion that mother, she has lived a nomadic life — she quake” and chapters are cab.” makes her question everything she was born in Tanzania, then, as a child, lived grouped under sections with labels that in- Owusu is unflinching in examining her- thought she knew. in Uganda, Ethiopia, Italy and England. clude “Faults,” “Aftershocks” and more. self, which is commendable, but her self- In the end, Owusu ultimately answers Later, when she was 18, she moved to New Throughout the book, Owusu writes reflection can veer toward the melodra- what home is. Her definition is pure and re- York for college and stayed there for her poignantly about belonging and assimila- matic and her repeated ruminations don’t storative to read. “I am made of the earth, tion. But the connective tissue of the book yield further clarity. “The boy’s bird body flesh, ocean, blood and bone of all the FAHIMA HAQUE is the audiences editor for The is the near-constant guilt she experiences haunts me,” she says when she sees a child places I tried to belong to and all the people Times’s National desk and works on the as she grapples with identity and her will- beggar collapse in Ethiopia. “He hovers I long for. I am pieces. I am whole. I am weekly Race/Related newsletter. ingness to erase the most vibrant parts of over me in judgment when I feel sorry for home.” 0

Unseen Revolution How one telephone call had a lasting impact on American politics.

narrow victory over Richard M. Nixon in thereafter to the state’s notorious maxi- brother’s chance of winning the South. But By RAYMOND ARSENAULT the most competitive presidential election mum-security prison in Reidsville. after cooling down and realizing that the of the 20th century. Kennedy’s razor-thin Coretta King, panic-stricken that her die was cast, he called Judge Mitchell to THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN STRUGGLE for triumph depended on several factors rang- husband might be murdered or even plead for King’s release on bail. freedom and civil rights is replete with dra- ing from his youthful charm to Mayor Rich- lynched, contacted Harris Wofford, a Mitchell agreed, King was soon released matic and harrowing stories, many involv- ard J. Daley’s ability to pad the Democratic friend and longtime civil rights advocate and on the last Sunday before the election, ing intimidation and threats of violence vote in Chicago. But, as the Kendricks ably working on Kennedy’s campaign. Along the Kennedy campaign blanketed the na- from white supremacist defenders of the demonstrate, one crucial factor in Ken- with Kennedy’s brother-in-law Sar- tion’s Black churches with a flier status quo. One of the most consequential nedy’s electoral success was the late surge gent Shriver and the Black jour- later known as the Blue Bomb. of these stories is the subject of “Nine of Black voters into the Democratic col- nalist Louis Martin, Wofford The choice was clear, the umn. In all likelihood, this surge repre- was part of a campaign ini- bright blue flier insisted: NINE DAYS sented the difference between victory and tiative charged with ex- “‘No Comment’ Nixon Ver- The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.’s defeat in at least five swing states, includ- panding the Black vote for sus a Candidate With a Life and Win the 1960 Election ing Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey, en- Kennedy by offsetting the Heart, Senator Kennedy.” By Stephen Kendrick and Paul Kendrick suring Kennedy’s comfortable margin senator’s mediocre record With Black ministers lead- Illustrated. 368 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $28. (303 to 219) in the Electoral College. on civil rights — somehow ing the way, Kennedy won This last-minute shift was precipitated without alienating the white an estimated 68 percent of by two impulsive phone calls: one from South. the Black vote on Election Days,” a compelling narrative written by John Kennedy to Coretta Scott King, ex- On Oct. 26, after consulting Day, 7 percent higher than Ad- the father-and-son team of Stephen and pressing his concern for her jailed hus- with Wofford, Shriver per- lai Stevenson’s showing in Paul Kendrick, co-authors of two previous band’s safety; the second from the candi- suaded Kennedy to call Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. 1956. books on race, law and politics. date’s younger brother Robert to Oscar King. The conversation was No brief review can do full The story begins in mid-October 1960 Mitchell, the Georgia judge overseeing brief, but the message was justice to the Kendricks’ with Martin Luther King Jr.’s incarceration King’s incarceration. Arrested on two mi- powerful: “I know this must masterly and often riveting (his first) in a Georgia jail cell and ends nor charges — participating in a student- be very hard for you. I understand you are account of King’s ordeal and the 1960 “Oc- three weeks later with John F. Kennedy’s led sit-in at Rich’s department store in At- expecting a baby, and I just wanted you to tober Surprise” that may have altered the lanta and driving with an Alabama license know that I was thinking about you and Dr. course of modern American political his- RAYMOND ARSENAULT, the John Hope Franklin after changing his residency to Georgia — King. If there is anything I can do to help, tory. Suffice it to say that any reader who professor of Southern history at the Univer- King was thought to be in grave danger af- please feel free to call on me.” When Bobby, navigates the many twists and turns and sity of South , is the author of “Free- ter a manacled, late-night transfer from an Jack’s campaign manager, learned what surprises in this complex tale will come dom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Atlanta jail to a remote rural facility in had happened, he was furious, fearing this away recognizing the power of historical Justice.” Klan-infested DeKalb County, and soon was a liberal stunt that would destroy his contingency. 0

14 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 PHOTOGRAPHS, FROM TOP: BEOWULF SHEEHAN; HORACE CORT/ASSOCIATED PRESS Mother Courage One Bad Apple One woman’s journey to Syria to find her radicalized son. A traumatized mother suspects her young daughter is evil.

Grozny, which offered a more cosmopoli- ter her marriage to Fox collapses, lurks By STEVEN LEE MYERS tan life. By CLAIRE MARTIN outside his new home and pulls a “Single When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, White Female” move on his new partner. THE TWO WARS that have taken place in the Chechnya declared independence, and Rus- IS MY CHILD’S BEHAVIOR NORMAL? It’s a The book is written almost entirely in rebellious Russian province of Chechnya sia eventually sent troops to wrest it back. parenting question for the ages, particu- the second person as one long missive were in many ways the horrifying denoue- With war at her doorstep, Lara fled to Geor- larly at a time when a certain type of par- from Blythe to Fox. It serves both as a post- ment of the Soviet Union’s collapse. gia with her two sons. Her husband fled, too, ent (present company included) frets over mortem of their relationship and as an ur- Though confined to “a small corner of hell,” finding asylum in an unnamed place in Eu- every childhood quirk, no matter how gent call for him to reckon with Violet’s dis- as Anna Politkovskaya, the late Russian rope that Jagielski simply refers to as the mundane. Does the preschooler with a turbing behavior. journalist, called the place, the wars rever- Alps. Lara thought she had found refuge. predilection for hitting need a professional Audrain has a gift for capturing the berate to this day. “Here, out of the way, the war would never intervention, or maybe just a taekwondo seemingly small moments that speak vol- Those reverberations — from Europe to reach them,” Jagielski writes. But it does. umes about relationships. While Blythe Syria — are at the heart of a new book from The first Chechen war ended in stalemate THE PUSH was in labor with Violet, Fox was “standing Wojciech Jagielski, another journalist who, in 1996, but when the region then descended By Ashley Audrain two feet away, drinking the water the nurse like Politkovskaya, has traversed the into lawlessness, Russia’s first democrat- 320 pp. Pamela Dorman Books. $26. had brought for me.” And a couple of years world’s darkest corners. ically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, in later, after Violet’s cries interrupt a sexy “All Lara’s Wars,” translated from the 1999 entrusted a young new prime minister Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, is Jagiel- to launch another military campaign. That class? Is the kid who drops naps but not ski’s journalistic account of one woman’s man, Vladimir Putin, would prove to be a tantrums a future rageaholic? This sort of journey from an improbably idyllic child- ruthless commander in chief. hand-wringing, at its most extreme, is at hood in the mountains of Georgia — “there Lara’s village became a staging ground the center of Ashley Audrain’s taut, chill- was no finer place on Earth” — through for insurgent attacks across the border. ing debut novel, “The Push.” Her sons, now teenagers, were beguiled by Blythe Connor is reluctant to become a ALL LARA’S WARS tales of the Chechen fighters and increas- parent — understandably so. Her own By Wojciech Jagielski ingly came under the sway of Islamic ex- mother abandoned her when she was 11, Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones tremism. New mosques sprouted in the after years of cruelty. Her grandmother, 269 pp. Seven Stories Press. Paper, $23.95. gorge, built with foreign money supporting also abusive, departed in a more gruesome holy war against the Russians. Lara’s two way: by hanging herself from a tree in the brothers, acting as guides for a notorious front yard. Blythe is primed, perhaps even one conflict after another. “War was like a Chechen commander, Ruslan Gelayev, genetically programmed, for maternal curse that had dogged her at every step, died in a Russian ambush. struggle. “I think the baby hates me,” she constantly reminding her of its presence Once reconnected, her husband sum- says just days after giving birth to her first and steadily robbing her of everything she moned the boys to Europe, which gave her child, a daughter named Violet. Their rela- loved or valued,” Jagielski writes. hope that they could escape the violence. tionship goes downhill from there. The author of previous books on wars in But after building new lives there, the boys Blythe’s postpartum experience is famil- Afghanistan and Uganda, Jagielski became alienated and then radical- iar, and Audrain renders it flawlessly. seems less interested in a historical ized. When the oldest, here called Breastfeeding isn’t a spontanous success, inquiry of jihad than in an inti- Shamil, joined the civil war in for one thing; a nurse “stood over us and mate account of the toll war ex- Syria, becoming a deputy to a stared at Violet and my huge brown nipple as ELENI DEBO acts on one woman. At the Chechen commander of the she tried to latch again.” Blythe struggles to same time, this is a book that Islamic State, Lara em- adapt to motherhood and she sees seismic shower, their relationship has moved to a in its way seeks to explain barked on a remarkable shifts in her relationship to her husband, phase where Fox “tossed me a towel like what unfolds each time a ter- journey to bring him home. Fox. Noticeably absent is any sense of joy or my teammate in a locker room.” rorist attack is carried out by Jagielski, for better or wonder. “I was so disappointed she was Audrain conjures the disintegration of a young Chechen immigrant, worse, seems to have em- mine,” Blythe says of Violet. She admits to marriage, along with the legacy of inter- like the recent stabbing of a braced the reporting model of ignoring her baby’s cries for hours on end. generational trauma and the pain of paren- teacher in France. Ryszard Kapuscinski, the It would be easy to chalk up these diffi- tal grief, so movingly that the extent to “When I lost my husband, and famed Polish journalist. Kapus- culties to postpartum depression if it were- which Blythe goes off the rails doesn’t Wojciech Jagielski then both my brothers were cinksi crafted incredible tales n’t for the periodic reminders of Blythe’s seem that far-fetched — which is saying a killed, I thought war was a man’s but was dogged by accusations traumatic family history, woven through business, and women had no of confabulation. “All Lara’s the book in stand-alone chapters. Blythe’s Audrain nimbly stokes the mystery part in it,” Jagielski’s subject tells him. Wars” is billed as a true story, but parts of mother hit her and often disappeared for a “But I refused to give up my sons. I was it, as with Kapuscinksi’s work, strain credi- night or two at a time. Blythe’s grand- as to whether nature or nurture is at their mother; my right to them was great- bility. Jagielski, for example, renders mother routinely locked Blythe’s mother play. er.” lengthy passages of dialogue that would be out of the house after school and once held Lara (not her real name, we learn at the difficult for anyone to recall verbatim. In her head underwater in the bathtub, lot since it involves donning a wig in order end) belongs to a small community, the an afterword, he explains that he changed nearly drowning her. to befriend Fox’s new partner, and then ly- Kists, who settled in Georgia’s remote the name of the woman at the center of his Audrain nimbly stokes the mystery as to ing pathologically to her. Blythe’s experi- Pankisi Gorge centuries ago. They are story — and those of “most of the other whether nature or nurture is at play in Vio- ences are relatable on one level and full- cousins of the Chechens, Muslims on the people.” You have to take the author and let’s increasingly hostile disposition. When stop alarming on another, a hallmark of the northern slope of the Caucasus who have the subjects at their word. a toddler standing near Violet on a play psychological thriller genre that’s execut- long bristled under Russian rule. The story, though, is riveting. In the end, structure falls to his death, Blythe’s suspi- ed with gripping precision here. As a girl she dreamed of becoming an ac- Lara says she doesn’t really know what cions intensify. But Fox, ever protective of Occasionally the second person gets re- tress; she graduated from high school and radicalized her sons. Nor do we as readers, their daughter, won’t hear of it. And since petitive, and I found myself longing to hear went on to study to become a teacher. On a though there are clues: the glorification of Blythe herself is more than a little off-kil- Fox’s voice — or anyone else’s, really. But summer break, she met and married a armed resistance, the anomie of modern ter, it’s hard to know whose side to take. the chapters examining Blythe’s family’s Chechen, moving to Chechnya’s capital, life, the venomous corruption of faith. She She’s a classic unreliable narrator who, af- past provide texture, and the narrative feels, perhaps unfairly, guilty. feels more balanced once Fox’s partner is STEVEN LEE MYERS is the Beijing bureau chief “Everything I did was designed to put CLAIRE MARTIN is a freelance journalist and a tricked into dishing on their life, even ask- for The Times and previously worked as a them off war,” she says, “but everything I former Sunday Business columnist for The ing Blythe for parenting advice. Finally, correspondent in Moscow. did pushed them toward it.” 0 Times. someone thinks she’s a good mother. 0

PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKOLAJ DLUGOSZ THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 15 Here Is the Fire Now

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 by Black women and Black queers whom whiteness and its God have taught us to What I found was an often lyrical and re- hate so well — I arrived at this book both bellious love story embedded within a gracefully and loudly saying, “Remember tender call-out to Black readers, reaching who you have long been.” Jones seems to across time and form to shake something be reaching across centuries of blood and old, mighty in the blood. memory in an attempt to shake awake a “The Prophets” opens with a direct ad- warrior armed with weapon and wit that dress, or maybe an address that speaks lies sleeping in his imagined, beloved, right past you depending on who you are: Black reader. “You do not yet know us. All of it — the seven voices, the midnight You do not yet understand.” blue lovers, the warrior women, the shad- Speaking are seven voices who, in a pro- ows fat with ancestors — pressed upon my logue of sorts, usher readers into the world Black heart asking me to remember before of “The Prophets.” the boats, to not turn from the horror of the “A story is coming. fields and see what has always been most Your story is coming.” beautiful and unkillable in us — our ways, The central story that comes is anchored our fight, our magic, our love. “The Proph- by Isaiah and Samuel, two enslaved boys ets” attempts to give its Black characters on the Halifax plantation, also known as and Black audience the same gifts — our Empty. In each other, Isaiah and Samuel right names, our Black knowing, a freedom find a love that brings peace to the hearts outside of time and circumstance. of the many enslaved people on the planta- Jones’s adoration for Toni Morrison tion, until they are betrayed by a fellow en- shines through the novel, which is both a slaved man, Amos. Seeing the religious de- blessing and a hindrance. Haints and blue votion of Paul, his often soiled, quick-to- eyes in the book seem to wink at Mor- cruelness master, and believing Christian- rison’s catalog, and like Morrison, Jones ity to be a pathway to better treatment for proves himself an amazing lyricist, pulling those enslaved, Amos approaches Paul, of- poetry out of every image and shift of light. fering to bring the Word to those held cap- Nothing here is flat, everything has shape tive on the plantation. Paul eventually sees and depth, we see deep into shadows and the value in Amos’s proposition and allows silences, transgress rich landscapes him to begin preaching, a task that Amos rivered and internal. excels in, mesmerizing his fellow captives In another Morrisonian move, the story with his sermons, delivered with a musi- Robert Jones Jr. near his home in Bedford–Stuyvesant. of “The Prophets” is narrated by not one cality Paul himself admits he wouldn’t central character but by a tapestry of folks, have the rhythm to try. the vantage point of each chapter shifting The Word begins to spread across the to another person on the plantation, from plantation, and where folks once saw Isai- the many enslaved who are watching for ah and Samuel as beautiful — one “a deep buried him: chances were that he would on their wedding day, on the eve of their knowing shadows and chances to strike, to cavern without lamplight to guide, the probably die at the end of a noose and village’s invasion by Dutch enslavers. white enslavers who see empathy and other a midnight sky, but without any swung from a tree before being lit aflame From their wedding to captivity on the even kindness in their assaults and crimes. stars” — this new, singular God and his and foraged for parts — he would be aglow stinking haul of a ship en route to America, This form is one place “The Prophets” fal- ways, so unlike “the old ways” that guide with the possibility he was shown, not the Kosii and Elewa’s love, torture and eventu- ters. If a character is named, you can be and protect, rot their Black captives’ sight residual embers of an unkind torch.” al rebellion act as a direct echo of Isaiah sure there will be a chapter dedicated to and turn them against the two young What is so adored at first, and then cor- and Samuel, lovers beloved by their peo- him or her, and while that offers perspec- lovers. roded in the eyes of the others by Amos, is ple, interrupted by the wickedness of tive, it also sacrifices some of the urgency. To Amos, his betrayal of Isaiah and Sam- Isaiah and Samuel’s choice to love, their whiteness. At times, I wanted less from the minor uel is a way to protect everybody held cap- consent, their choosing and choosing and Through these characters and their characters and more time with the lovers tive on the plantation — Isaiah and Samu- choosing of each other, a choice outside of stories, “The Prophets” calls, across time, and the villains of the book, more space to el’s refusal of the forced mating that the en- force or order, in a nature we (we!) have on queer warriors, woman kings, root dramatize both the peace and the tension slavers demand as a way to breed more en- long forgotten. in the story. slaved people puts everyone, including the One of the blessings of “The Prophets” is The last chapters of “The Prophets,” lovers themselves, in danger. His love for its long memory. Jones uses the voices Jones seems to be reaching however, dispelled some of my frustration the boys — and he does love them in his from the prologue to speak across time, to across centuries of blood and with the form of the narrative. The book own way, having carried a young Isaiah in character and reader alike. These short, memory to awaken a warrior closes with a brilliantly rendered suite of his arms to Empty when they were sold lyric-driven chapters struck me as instruc- armed with weapon and wit. rebellion and choice that left me in tears. and brought to the plantation — is turned tive and redemptive attempts at healing What earthly, writerly beefs I had with the against them, a logic made by captivity. historical wounds, tracing a map back to book evaporated, forgiven. What Black, Isaiah and Samuel’s relationship is the the possibility of our native, queer, warrior women and boys in love to paint a long queer wounds I held close to the chest, I most tender and stunning achievement of Black selves. These voices are Black col- queer Black history, a history of rising surrendered, I let breathe. “The Prophets.” Their beauty, the wonder lective knowledge given shape, the oral against, of ever making one’s way back to What a fiery kindness that ending, this of their spell, illuminates the darkness: tradition speaking in your face and setting freedom. book. A book I entered hesitantly, cau- “Willingness radiated off of them in you right. Is Jones pointing to the current moment tiously, I exited anew — something in me heat,” one character, Adam, thinks. “No Another way this blessing takes shape is we find ourselves living in? Black people, unloosed, running. May this book cast its matter where they buried him — if they through a subplot centering on Kosii and once again, same as always, dying and spell on all of us, restore to us some memo- Elewa, two gay (I’m using our word, my fighting the murderous avatars of white ry of our most warrior and softest selves. DANEZ SMITH is the author of three poetry looking to name this old thing for us) lovers greed for another piece of freedom. After “Here is the fire now: collections, most recently “Homie,” and is a who precede Isaiah and Samuel. We meet another summer in the streets fighting for dancing, destroying.” co-host of the “VS” . Kosii and Elewa through flashback scenes, our collective life — at marches often led And may we spin and ignite in turn. 0

16 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 PHOTOGRAPH BY NAIMA GREEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Death Do Us Part? A debut novel paying tribute to the author’s lost family.

“Hades, Argentina” is the first novel by deliver shocks — 14,000 in one instance — By BENJAMIN NUGENT Daniel Loedel, an American book editor. In but scant insight into the mentality of the a commendable display of chutzpah, he torturers. A set piece about the dictator- ONE OF THE signal achievements of contem- has written an Argentine Gothic: a ro- ship’s practice of dropping its victims from porary Argentine fiction has been to take the mance of sorts between Tomás, the narra- planes “into the depths of the Río de la country’s dark recent history — the state ter- tor, and Isabel, both of whom have been Plata” is wedged into the middle of the rorism of the ’70s and ’80s, the subsequent “disappeared” by the dictatorship in the book, and written in stilted prose: “One at economic crises that brutalized the poor — 1970s. For Tomás, a spy for the resistance, a time they fell.” Loedel’s exhaustive ac- and channel it into ghost stories. In Mariana “disappeared” means being slipped a fake count of the junta’s crimes might be a Enriquez’s short story “The Inn,” for in- passport by a friend in the military and homage to the long chronicle of violence sent into exile. For his beloved Isabel, a against women in Roberto Bolaño’s novel HADES, ARGENTINA Montonera resistance fighter, it means be- “2666” — an oft-repeated street address in By Daniel Loedel ing killed. When the two reunite in 1986, af- Loedel’s novel is “Río Negro 2166” — as 294 pp. Riverhead Books. $27. ter the official restoration of democracy, well as to the memory of his half sister and Tomás is emotionally dead, a ghost of a her cause. Alas, it doesn’t always serve the man; and Isabel is physically dead, an ac- story. stance, a tourist-town hotel that served as an tual ghost. Loedel has inherited a particu- Still, it’s fun and sad to follow Tomás and army barracks during the dictatorship is lar brand of mordant humor from his liter- Isabel past the forgotten equestrian stat- haunted by spirits from the bad old days; in ary forebears in the Southern Cone: When ues and dingy cafes of Buenos Aires, be- César Aira’s novel “Ghosts,” a gang of naked Tomás references Ronald Reagan (“U.S. neath skies with “the slippery iridescence shades haunts a Buenos Aires construction president? Actor from California?”), Isa- of fish scales,” both lovers stunted, one site, visible to the workers and their families, bel shows “no sign of recognition.” When technically alive, the other joking about invisible to the rich people set to move into they fall into bed, he says, “I imagine sex is her otherworldly condition. When Tomás the building once it’s finished. Those tales . . . complicated for you now.” written without her sacrifice.” asks Isabel if she’s lonely, she says, “Like are part of a tradition critics have called “Ar- The character of Isabel Aroztegui is very Loedel’s sense of obligation to the real Dracula.” Any debut author who can come gentine Gothic,” one founded by names like much based on a real woman. Loedel dedi- Isabel might explain why “Hades, Ar- up with that exchange deserves some at- Silvina Ocampo, Julio Cortázar and Jorge cates the book to his half sister, Isabel gentina” can feel dutiful, even workman- tention. Loedel will learn from this novel, Luis Borges. Maiztegui, a Montonera who was mur- like in places as it catalogs the depravities and I suspect that he will approach his next dered by the dictatorship in 1978, at the age of the regime she fought. There are de- book with a greater sense of freedom. Per- BENJAMIN NUGENT is the author, most recently, of 22. In the acknowledgments, the author tailed descriptions of various torture meth- haps he will show us more of that bleak, se- of “Fraternity.” writes that this novel “could not have been ods, down to the number of volts used to rious comedy he writes so well. 0

Word Play A raucous homage to the power of language, both real and imagined.

of the elegant Queen Anne building for Williams, a British writer who is also the By PATRICIA T. O’CONNER events. author of the story collection “Attrib.,” in- Meanwhile, back in the 19th century, Pe- geniously links these parallel narratives. YOU WOULDN’T EXPECT a comic novel ter is also numbingly bored at Swansby’s, Peter wakes one morning with a pounding about a dictionary to be a thriller too, but where he’s one of more than 100 lexicogra- head after a night of drinking and wonders this one is. In fact, Eley Williams’s hilari- phers toiling at what he considers “a point- why there’s no word for his condition. Lat- ous new book, “The Liar’s Dictionary,” is less census of language.” But he has a cou- er, Mallory reflects on the many modern also a mystery, love story (two of them) ple of secret amusements. One is a fake words that never made it into Swansby’s, and cliffhanging melodrama. lisp, which he cultivates for sympathy (it like the bibulous sense of “hangover.” got him his job). The other is a furtive tal- Their love lives are ambivalent, each in THE LIAR’S DICTIONARY ent for making up words, like “abantina its own way. Peter, who’s excruciatingly By Eley Williams (n.),” defined as “fickleness,” and “agrupt shy, is smitten by a colleague’s fiancée. 270 pp. Doubleday. $26.95. (adj.),” about the “irritation caused by Mallory is gay though not quite out, while having a denouement ruined.” They’re his her lover, Pip, is “out-and-out out.” When “secret, silly words,” his “cuckoos-in-the- Mallory ruminates on all the words we The twin protagonists are separated by As the novel opens, Mallory is the com- nest.” don’t have — like one for the kindness of more than a century. Mallory and Peter pany’s only remaining employee, a bored The cuckoos have now come home to people who try to free trapped insects — work at Swansby House in London, home intern whose sole task is to answer the roost. David Swansby, who wants to up- Pip asks, “What about a word for not being of Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictio- phone. It’s not much of a job, since the date and digitize the dictionary, discovers out?” (Peter, in the meantime, struggles to nary, she in the present and he in 1899. phone rings just once a day (with a cryptic two fake entries and asks Mallory to root release a moth from his railway carriage.) What gradually weaves their alternating bomb threat). She passes her time reading out any others. Before long, she’s amassed “The Liar’s Dictionary” is a raucous stories together is the curious power of the dictionary, a dusty behemoth that for piles of suspicious-looking blue index orgy of words. Williams juggles them, words, both real and imagined. all practical purposes is dead. Work on it cards from the company’s archives, writ- plays tunes with them, tries them on and was abandoned around World War I, far ten in a similar hand. Fascinated, she tries takes them off, tastes them and spits them PATRICIA T. O’CONNER’S books on language short of the letter Z, and it exists only in an to imagine the author of these “small out. All the while, she’s using them to include “Woe Is I” and, most recently, “Origins incomplete nine-volume edition published sweet observations, inconsequen- frame a thoughtful inquiry into truth and of the Specious,” written with Stewart Kel- in the 1930s. The company is kept alive by tialisms.” Should she expose them, or let meaning. And her denouements are so lerman. They about language at gram- the persistence of its owner and editor in sleeping dogs lie? (Interpret “lie” howev- satisfying that it would be agrupt to spoil marphobia.com. chief, David Swansby, who rents out most er you wish.) them. 0

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JASJYOT SINGH HANS THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 17 Children’s Books / Coping With Loss About the Boy A memoir so rife with trauma it’s written in the third person.

events in his novels, in particular his New- scandalized maternal grandmother is the By JARRETT J. KROSOCZKA bury Honor-winning “Hatchet.” one who insists he go live with Aunt Edy, Paulsen refers to himself throughout as his mother’s younger sister, and her hus- AUTHORS’ CHILDHOOD experiences — no “the boy.” There is just one moment, early band, Sig, in Minnesota’s North Woods. matter how joyous or upsetting — often lay on, when a character calls him “Gary.” Paulsen describes their homestead as “a the groundwork for their fiction. Gary While the boy spends most of the book es- fairy tale kind of farm.” It is here that the Paulsen’s name is synonymous with gritty caping unfathomable traumas, “mind pic- boy learns to work and survive off the land, survivalist stories, so it should come as no tures” remain seared in his psyche. Writ- and immerses himself in the wonders of surprise that his memoir, “Gone to the ing a memoir is a fraught endeavor, and I childhood. Even in these sublime mo- Woods,” leaves you gritting your teeth and can only presume that Paulsen chose this ments, I found my heart racing, knowing clutching the pages. Paulsen, a recipient of third-person device — which sometimes that while authors may craft fairy tales, kept me at bay — as a form of self-care. they don’t always live them, because life GONE TO THE WOODS This isn’t to say the book is void of beau- doesn’t play out that way. and witnesses brutal killings. In North Da- Surviving a Lost Childhood tiful language or stunning detail. I was still My heart broke as does Sig’s when the kota, where his usually drunken, fighting By Gary Paulsen lost in the story, rooting for the 5-year-old boy’s mother turns up unannounced, with parents land next, he repeatedly runs 368 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $17.99. boy who boards a train alone in Chicago a man she calls “Uncle Casey,” to take him away, before enlisting in the Army. These (Ages 8 to 12) and rides 400 miles to Minneapolis sur- away, first by train to California and then events haunted me as a reader, so I can’t rounded by wounded soldiers returning “across the ocean to be with your father in begin to imagine how witnessing them from World War II, where his absent father a place called the Philippine Islands.” with his own eyes has haunted the author. the American Library Association’s presti- (whom he won’t meet until he’s 7) has been (“The man named Casey . . . was not the Lessons from Aunt Edy and Sig help him gious Margaret A. Edwards Award for his serving as a low-level officer under Gen- boy’s uncle and would never be his uncle.”) survive, or at least buoy him until at 13 he lasting contribution to young adult litera- eral Patton. In Minneapolis he transfers to So many horrors befall this boy as he first steps into the safe physical space of a ture, takes us inside his life story, where another train to travel hundreds of miles moves through his childhood and teenage public library, where a librarian puts a readers will quickly make connections to more — all to escape an alcoholic, irrespon- years. While traveling by boat to the Phil- notebook and a sharpened pencil in his sible mother. (She would dress him in a ippines, he witnesses a plane crash, fol- hands and encourages him to write down JARRETT J. KROSOCZKA is the author of the uniform and drag him with her to bars, lowed by a shark attack on the passengers his “mind pictures.” This small act has ech- graphic memoir “Hey, Kiddo,” which was a where she set him on tabletops to draw thrust into the water. While in Manila, he oed throughout his life, and enriched the National Book Award finalist. men to her by singing songs.) The boy’s hears heavy artillery being fired nightly lives of readers across generations. 0

The Hide-and-Seek of Grief Two picture books separate the person from the emotions, and model empathy.

death talks for fear of devastating him. pered bear in whom she recognizes a fa- By SYDNEY SMITH “Everyone you know will die someday. miliar anger and sadness. Over time they Many in your own lifetime and the more become companions in their respective “WE ONLY HAVE 42 more Christmases until you love them the harder it will be to say wanderings through grief. we are dead.” goodbye.” Where do I begin? “Some days, only Louise was better. This is what my 4-year-old told me in Picture books are the perfect medium by Some days, only Bear was better.” Colors mid-December before bedtime. He has which to introduce one of the more difficult are introduced to the palette as grief fades been testing out these kinds of musings on and complicated of life’s challenges: grief. and happiness returns. Andrew Arnold’s “What’s the Matter, Unlike “What’s the Matter, Marlo?,” WHAT’S THE MATTER, MARLO? Marlo?” follows a child and her best friend, “Bear Island” depicts a layered and com- By Andrew Arnold Marlo, spending time together laughing as plex journey. We are shown the true tragic 32 pp. Roaring Brook. $18.99. they read a joke book and playing hide- nature of grief as it happens to all of us. It’s (Ages 3 to 6) and-seek. One day Marlo is upset. He’s sad a slow process with ups and downs and no and angry. So angry that his rage, a mass of empathy. The role of the friend is to be quick fixes. Cordell speaks eloquently and BEAR ISLAND dark scribbles, fills the page and obscures present, patient and compassionate. respectfully to the universal experience of By Matthew Cordell him. Just as in hide-and-seek, the friend In Matthew Cordell’s “Bear Island,” we loss and recovery. 48 pp. Feiwel & Friends. $18.99. looks and looks until she finds Marlo, hid- are offered a similar canvas, and the pic- Authors such as Andrew Arnold and (Ages 2 to 5) ing in his grief. (His dog’s death is hinted at ture is painted with Cordell’s signature Matthew Cordell appreciate the unique visually.) The book concludes as they hug sensitivity. privilege of creating safe spaces for our mortality a lot lately. I quickly changed the and cry together, “because that’s what best We follow a girl, Louise, on her own emo- children to explore these multifaceted subject, asking which he would prefer, “PJ friends do.” tional trek after the death of the family dog. emotions. Their books promote self-aware- Masks” or dinosaur pajamas. The truth is, It’s beautifully precise, and accessible in The book begins with sepia-toned illustra- ness and understanding. After they are I am terrified of engaging him in these its simplicity. Not only does it speak to grief tions, bleached and faded like a forgotten closed, there may be hard conversations, in others, insightfully separating the per- T-shirt in the back of a station wagon. In and questions that have no answers, but SYDNEY SMITH’S most recent picture book is “I son from the (sometimes eruptive and un- her malaise, Louise rows out to the titular we’re left with a comforting message: It Talk Like a River,” with the poet Jordan Scott. predictable) emotions, but it also models island, where she encounters an ill-tem- will be OK if we are here for one another. 0

18 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 For the complete best-seller lists, visit Best Sellers nytimes.com/books/best-sellers

COMBINED PRINT AND E-BOOK BEST SELLERS SALES PERIOD OF DECEMBER 27-JANUARY 2

THIS LAST WEEKS THIS LAST WEEKS WEEK WEEK Fiction ON LIST WEEK WEEK Nonfiction ON LIST 1 THE DUKE AND I, by Julia Quinn. (Avon) The first book in the Bridgerton series. Daphne 1 1 1 A PROMISED LAND, by Barack Obama. (Crown) In the first volume of his presidential 7 Bridgerton’s reputation soars when she colludes with the Duke of Hastings. The basis of memoirs, Barack Obama offers personal reflections on his formative years and pivotal the Netflix series “Bridgerton.” moments through his first term.

2 2 THE VANISHING HALF, by Brit Bennett. (Riverhead) The lives of twin sisters who run away 31 2 2 GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. (Crown) The Academy Award-winning actor 11 from a Southern Black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes shares snippets from the diaries he kept over the last 35 years. on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine. 3 4 UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public speaker describes her journey 43 3 HUSH-HUSH, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam) The 56th book in the Stone Barrington series. 1 of listening to her inner voice. Old friends come to Stone’s aid as he takes on an expanding cabal of enemies. 4 5 CASTE, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House) The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist 22 4 14 THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE, by V.E. Schwab. (Tor/Forge) A Faustian bargain 9 examines aspects of caste systems across civilizations and reveals a rigid hierarchy in comes with a curse that affects the adventure Addie LaRue has across centuries. America today.

5 13 THE LAW OF INNOCENCE, by Michael Connelly. (Little, Brown) The sixth book in the 8 5 THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE, by Bessel van der Kolk. (Penguin) How trauma affects the 19 Mickey Haller series. Haller defends himself when police find the body of a former client body and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery. in his car’s trunk. 6 3 BECOMING, by Michelle Obama. (Crown) The former first lady describes her journey from 92 6 1 A TIME FOR MERCY, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The third book in the Jake Brigance 12 the South Side of Chicago to the White House, and how she balanced work, family and series. A 16-year-old is accused of killing a deputy in Clanton, Miss., in 1990. her husband’s political ascent.

7 THE VISCOUNT WHO LOVED ME, by Julia Quinn. (Avon) The second book in the 1 7 6 WORLD OF WONDERS, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. (Milkweed) In a collection of essays, 4 Bridgerton series. Kate Sheffield gets in the way of Anthony Bridgerton’s intent to marry. the poet celebrates various aspects of the natural world and its inhabitants.

8 11 ANXIOUS PEOPLE, by Fredrik Backman. (Atria) A failed bank robber holds a group of 17 8 13 THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, by Erik Larson. (Crown) An examination of the leadership 31 strangers hostage at an apartment open house. of the prime minister Winston Churchill.

9 AMERICAN DIRT, by Jeanine Cummins. (Flatiron) A bookseller flees Mexico for the United 37 9 8 IS THIS ANYTHING?, by Jerry Seinfeld. (Simon & Schuster) The comedian shares material 11 States with her son while pursued by the head of a drug cartel. he collected in an accordion folder over the last 45 years.

10 5 THE RETURN, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central) A doctor serving in the Navy in 14 10 THE ANSWER IS ..., by Alex Trebek. (Simon & Schuster) A memoir by the host of the TV 9 Afghanistan goes back to North Carolina where two women change his life. game show “Jeopardy!,” from 1984 to 2020. 22 The New York Times best sellers are compiled and archived by the best-sellers-lists desk of the New York Times news department, and are separate from the editorial, culture, advertising and business sides of The New York Times Company. Rankings reflect unit sales reported on a confidential basis by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles published in the United States. ONLINE: For complete lists and a full explanation of our methodology, visit www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers.

Editors’ Choice / Staff Picks From the Book Review

HIMALAYA: A Human History, by Ed Douglas. (Nor- SAVING FREEDOM: Truman, the Cold War, and the WILD MINDS: The Artists and Rivalries That In- ton, $40.) This authoritative account of the world’s Fight for Western Civilization, by Joe Scarborough. spired the Golden Age of Animation, by Reid Miten- most storied mountains is rich with personalities, (Harper/HarperCollins, $29.99.) The popular cable buler. (Atlantic Monthly Press, $28.) Mitenbuler’s politics and lore, to which Douglas, a veteran moun- news host examines President Harry Truman’s fast-moving account of the cartoonists, writers, taineer and expert on the region, brings an infec- legacy, showing how shrewd White House politics hucksters and moguls who constructed the firma- tious love and fascination. overcame America’s divisions and its isolationist ment of American animation is also filled with tradition. shady business dealings and fierce rivalries. A GOOD TIME TO BE BORN: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future, by Perri Klass. A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF, by Peter AN INVENTORY OF LOSSES, by Judith Schalansky. (Norton, $28.95.) In this ambitious, elegant medita- Ho Davies. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24.) In Da- Translated by Jackie Smith. (New Directions, $24.95.) tion on medicine, culture and parenting, Klass vies’s wise, bracingly honest novel, a father chroni- This genre-defying catalog of things that no longer explores one of our greatest human achievements: cles his son’s birth through his teenage years. He exist takes on a variety of styles, from researched the reduction in child mortality. With a powerful juggles guilt, worry and marital strife alongside the histories to richly imagined narratives. A vanished rage, she underscores the racism and shameful joys, triumphs and laughter of family life — never island, the Caspian tiger, Sappho’s lost poems: Each political truths that have complicated our contempo- sugarcoating, always leaning into the hard parts in gives rise to a fascinating study of disappearance. rary plague. a way that’s refreshing, timely and necessary. EXERCISED: Why Something We Never Evolved to BAG MAN: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, HOW TO SLOWLY KILL YOURSELF AND OTHERS IN Do Is Healthy and Rewarding, by Daniel E. Lieber- and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the AMERICA, by Kiese Laymon. (Scribner, paper, $16.) A man. (Pantheon, $29.95.) An evolutionary biologist White House, by Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz. contentious publishing experience left Laymon debunks common fitness myths and explains why (Crown, $28.) This detailed and breezy account of unsatisfied with his 2013 essay collection. Now, we resist exercise even if we know it’s good for us. Vice President Spiro Agnew’s downfall, adapted seven years later, after buying the book back from from the authors’ popular podcast, reminds us of his initial publisher and revising the collection, he The full reviews of these and other recent books how lucky the nation was to be rid of him. returns with Take 2. are online: nytimes.com/books

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 19 Inside the List PRINT | HARDCOVER BEST SELLERS SALES PERIOD OF DECEMBER 27-JANUARY 2 ELISABETH EGAN

...... THIS LAST WEEKS THIS LAST WEEKS WEEK WEEK Fiction ON LIST WEEK WEEK Nonfiction ON LIST

Game On When “” 3 31 1 7 1 THE VANISHING HALF, by Brit Bennett. (Riverhead) The 1 A PROMISED LAND, by Barack Obama. (Crown) In the first came out in 2011, bought lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern Black volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama offers his dream car — a “Back to the Future”- community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other personal reflections on his formative years and pivotal inspired DeLorean — and logged 4,000 takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine. moments through his first term. miles driving to bookstores to talk about his debut novel, which 2 13 THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE, by V.E. Schwab. (Tor/ 11 2 2 GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. (Crown) The 11 was made into a movie Forge) A Faustian bargain comes with a curse that affects Academy Award-winning actor shares snippets from the directed by Steven the adventure Addie LaRue has across centuries. diaries he kept over the last 35 years. Spielberg. He’d park out front so fans could 3 4 THE RETURN, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central) A doctor 14 3 4 UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Dial) The activist and public 43 snap pictures of them- serving in the Navy in Afghanistan goes back to North speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice. selves alongside the Carolina where two women change his life. iconic vehicle. “It was 6 CASTE, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Random House) The Pulitzer 22 ‘My wife and 4 like a traveling ’80s 4 2 READY PLAYER TWO, by Ernest Cline. (Ballantine) In a 6 Prize-winning journalist examines aspects of caste systems I had our museum,” Cline said in sequel to “Ready Player One,” Wade Watts discovers a across civilizations and reveals a rigid hierarchy in America anniversary a phone interview. “It technological advancement and goes on a new quest. today. in a VR made for kind of a room.’ festive event.” 5 6 WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, by Delia Owens. (Putnam) In 122 5 3 BECOMING, by Michelle Obama. (Crown) The former first 99 In November, his a quiet town on the North Carolina coast in 1969, a woman lady describes how she balanced work, family and her sequel, “Ready Player who survived alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect. husband’s political ascent. Two,” landed in a very different world — one where the futuristic technology 6 10 ANXIOUS PEOPLE, by Fredrik Backman. (Atria) A failed bank 16 6 5 WORLD OF WONDERS, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. 4 Cline envisioned in “Ready Player One” robber holds a group of strangers hostage at an apartment (Milkweed) In a collection of essays, the poet celebrates has not only come to fruition but become open house. various aspects of the natural world and its inhabitants. indispensable. This time, instead of traversing the country, the former spo- 7 1 A TIME FOR MERCY, by John Grisham. (Doubleday) The third 12 7 14 THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, by Erik Larson. (Crown) An 31 ken word poet, lifelong gaming enthusi- book in the Jake Brigance series. A 16-year-old is accused of examination of the leadership of the prime minister Winston ast and self-described “full-time geek” killing a deputy in Clanton, Miss., in 1990. Churchill. conducted a virtual author tour from his home in Austin, Texas. Sales of this 8 THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE, by Marie Benedict. 1 8 9 BAG MAN, by Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz. (Crown) 4 novel do not seem to have suffered: (Sourcebooks Landmark) What might have happened during The MSNBC host gives an account of the 1973 investigation “Ready Player Two” debuted at No. 1 on the 11 days in which a rising mystery author went missing of then Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and its impact on the hardcover fiction list, spent three in 1926. politics and the media. weeks in that spot and is now at No. 4 in its sixth week as a best seller. It’s No. 1 9 THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, by Matt Haig. (Viking) Nora Seed 5 9 BREATH, by James Nestor. (Riverhead) A re-examination of 10 on the audio fiction list, and “Ready finds a library beyond the edge of the universe that contains a basic biological function and a look at the science behind Player One” is No. 15. (The actor Wil books with multiple possibilities of the lives one could have ancient breathing practices. lived. Wheaton narrates both books, as well as Cline’s alien invasion thriller, “Armada.”) 8 HUMANS, by Brandon Stanton. (St. Martin’s) Photos and 12 5 6 10 Cline has embraced virtual reality as 10 DEADLY CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown) The stories of people from over 40 countries collected by the a result of his work on the “Ready Play- 28th book in the Alex Cross series. An investigation of a creator of “Humans of New York.” double homicide sends Alex Cross to Alabama. er” books — in fact, when he realized in-person visits would be curtailed, he An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders. supplied friends and family with Oculus Quest headsets so they could hang out in 3-D. Clearly surmising that he was in conversation with a late adopter of ev- Paperback Row / BY JENNIFER KRAUSS erything, Cline explained, “My wife and I had our anniversary in a VR room. It was really cool. There’s an app called AMNESTY, by Aravind Adiga. (Scrib- GROWN UPS, by Emma Jane COOL TOWN: How Athens, Georgia, Big Screen where you can hang out in a ner, 272 pp., $17.) The “driving Unsworth. (Scout Press/Gallery, 368 Launched Alternative Music and pp., $16.99.) This “truly funny” Changed American Culture, by living room with a movie screen and we force” of this “thriller-like” novel by comedic novel about a female Grace Elizabeth Hale. (University of showed video and photos from our wed- the Booker Prize-winning Indian- Australian author of “The White web-obsessed millennial — our North Carolina Press, 384 pp., $20.) ding slideshow. We feel like we were the Tiger” is an unsolved murder about reviewer, Kelly Conaboy, wrote — is A history and American studies champions of social distancing.” which its undocumented protago- “less of an escape than it is a set of professor who once played in a This Ohio native is married to Cristin nist has information. Praising its ‘Clockwork Orange’ metal eye band and ran an underground club O’Keefe Aptowicz, a fellow author whose “humanity,” Juan Gabriel Vásquez, clamps, forcing you to examine,” in Athens, Hale analyzes why this 2014 book, “Dr. Mütter’s Marvels,” our reviewer, declared it “an urgent via “hand-wringing over exclama- sleepy college town spawned the crossed paths with “Ready Player One” and significant book.” tion points and emoji choices and likes of the B-52’s and R.E.M., and on the best-seller list. The pair, who met the exact right timing of a fav, your became “the model for the small, own profoundly unhealthy relation- deeply local bohemias that togeth- on the poetry slam circuit, have real-life, GOLDEN GATES: The Housing Crisis ship with social media.” er formed ’80s indie culture.” framed evidence of the overlap hanging and a Reckoning for the American in their living room. Dream, by Conor Dougherty. (Pen- guin, 304 pp., $18.) Though this CLEANNESS, by Greenwell. THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, by Stephen In his novels, Cline said, he strives to “masterly primer on the fight for (Picador, 240 pp., $16.) Revisiting Graham Jones. (Saga Press/Gallery, portray “the good side and the bad side” new construction” in California’s the territory of Greenwell’s 2016 336 pp., $16.99.) Our reviewer, of innovation. “I think there’s always Bay Area can feel “a little local,” novel “What Belongs to You,” these Danielle Trussoni, called this both,” he said. “Whenever we create a our reviewer, Francesca Mari, stories are a “wistful paean,” our “panoramic view” of the struggles technology, it’s to improve our lives, but noted, Dougherty, a Times econom- reviewer, Colm Toibin, observed, to and triumphs of four Native Ameri- it can have unforeseen side effects that ics reporter, convincingly argues the place where the unnamed gay can young men, haunted by the we then have to mitigate. That’s humani- that these “carnivalesque battles” American expatriate teacher who spirit of a pregnant elk they killed is their first-person narrator “lived on a hunting expedition and by the ty’s push and pull, that love-hate rela- are “a microcosm of the exasperat- ing land-use issues threatening in uneasy exile, or learned to grow burdens of tradition, a “gritty and tionship.” 0 other thriving economies.” up, or both.” gorgeous” horror novel.

20 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 AUDIO MONTHLY BEST SELLERS SALES PERIOD OF NOVEMBER 29-JANUARY 2 NEW from THIS MONTHS THIS MONTHS MONTH Audio Fiction ON LIST MONTH Audio Nonfiction ON LIST Katherine Schulten and READY PLAYER TWO, by Ernest Cline. (Random 2 A PROMISED LAND, by Barack Obama. (Random 2 1 House Audio) In a sequel to “Ready Player One,” 1 House Audio) In the first volume of his presidential Wade Watts discovers a technological advancement memoirs, Barack Obama offers personal reflections and goes on a new quest. Read by Wil Wheaton. 13 on his formative years and pivotal moments THE NEW YORK TIMES hours, 46 minutes unabridged. through his first term. Read by the author. 29 hours, 10 minutes unabridged. THE GUEST LIST, by Lucy Foley. (HarperAudio) 7 Learning Network 2 A wedding between a TV star and a magazine GREENLIGHTS, by Matthew McConaughey. 3 publisher on an island off the coast of Ireland turns 2 (Random House Audio) The Academy Award- deadly. Read by Jot Davies, Chloe Massey, Olivia winning actor shares snippets from the diaries he Dowd, et al. 9 hours, 54 minutes unabridged. kept over the last 35 years. Read by the author. 6 “The essays in Student Voice loudly proclaim hours, 42 minutes unabridged. THE VANISHING HALF, by Brit Bennett. (Penguin 6 what young writers are capable of: insightful 3 Audio) The lives of twin sisters who run away from CASTE, by Isabel Wilkerson. (Penguin Audio) The 5 a Southern Black community at age 16 diverge but 3 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines aspects opinions, thoughtful argument, compelling their fates intertwine. Read by Shayna Small. 11 of caste systems across civilizations and reveals hours, 34 minutes unabridged. a rigid hierarchy in America today. Read by Robin evidence, and—most importantly—lively writing.” Miles. 14 hours, 26 minutes unabridged. RHYTHM OF WAR, by Brandon Sanderson. 2 — Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Executive Director, 4 (Macmillan Audio) The fourth book in the UNTAMED, by Glennon Doyle. (Random House 10 Stormlight Archive series. Read by Kate Reading 4 Audio) The activist and public speaker describes National Writing Project and Michael Kramer. 57 hours and 26 minutes her journey of listening to her inner voice. Read by unabridged. the author. 8 hours, 22 minutes unabridged.

BRUSHFIRE, by Craig Alanson. (Podium Audio) The 1 BECOMING, by Michelle Obama. (Random House 26 5 11th book in the Expeditionary Force series. Read 5 Audio) The former first lady describes her journey by R. C. Bray. 19 hours, 18 minutes unabridged. from the South Side of Chicago to the White House, and how she balanced work, family and her THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY, by Matt Haig. (Penguin 1 husband’s political ascent. Read by the author. 19 6 Audio) Nora Seed finds a library beyond the edge hours, 3 minutes unabridged. of the universe that contains books with multiple possibilities of the lives one could have lived. Read EXTREME OWNERSHIP, by Jocko Willink and Leif 30 by Carey Mulligan. 8 hours, 50 minutes unabridged. 6 Babin. (Macmillan Audio) Applying the principles of Navy SEALs leadership training to any organization. A TIME FOR MERCY, by John Grisham. (Random 3 Read by the authors. 8 hours, 15 minutes 7 House Audio) The third book in the Jake Brigance unabridged. series. A 16-year-old is accused of killing a deputy in Clanton, Miss., in 1990. Read by Michael Beck. TALKING TO STRANGERS, by Malcolm 15 19 hours, 59 minutes unabridged. 7 Gladwell. (Hachette Audio) Famous examples of miscommunication serve as the backdrop to THE STAND, by . (Random House 3 explain potential conflicts. Read by the author. 8 8 Audio) A struggle of good and evil takes place in hours, 42 minutes unabridged. a world transformed by a plague. Read by Grover Gardner. 47 hours, 47 minutes unabridged. HILLBILLY ELEGY, by J. D. Vance. (HarperAudio) A 2 8 Yale Law School graduate looks at the struggles of ANXIOUS PEOPLE, by Fredrik Backman. (Simon 4 America’s white working class. Read by the author. 9 & Schuster Audio) A failed bank robber holds a 6 hours, 49 minutes unabridged. group of strangers hostage at an apartment open house. Read by Marin Ireland. 9 hours, 53 minutes SAPIENS, by Yuval Noah Harari. (Harper Audio) 27 unabridged. 9 How Homo sapiens became Earth’s dominant species. Read by Derek Perkins. 15 hours, 17 DAYLIGHT, by David Baldacci. (Hachette Audio) 2 minutes unabridged. 10 The F.B.I. agent Atlee Pine’s search for her twin sister overlaps with a military investigator’s hunt BREATH, by James Nestor. (Penguin Audio) A re- 4 for someone involved in a global conspiracy. Read 10 examination of a basic biological function. Read by by Brittany Pressley and Kyf Brewer. 11 hours, 37 the author. 7 hours, 18 minutes unabridged. minutes unabridged. THE BEST OF ME, by David Sedaris. (Hachette 2 THE AWAKENING, by Nora Roberts. (Macmillan 2 11 Audio) A collection of the humorist’s essays 11 Audio) The first book in the Dragon Heart Legacy including “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and “A Guy series. Breen Kelly travels through a portal in Walks Into a Bar Car.” Read by the author. 13 hours, Ireland to a land of faeries and mermaids. Read 8 minutes unabridged. Now collected for the first time in one volume, by Barrie Kreinik. 15 hours and 27 minutes unabridged. BORN A CRIME, by Trevor Noah. (Audible Studios) 33 Student Voice: 100 Argument Essays by 12 A memoir about growing up in South Africa by the THE DUKE AND I, by Julia Quinn. (Recorded Books) 1 host of “The Daily Show,” whose parents had an Teens on Issues That Ma! er spotlights the 12 Daphne Bridgerton’s reputation soars when she illegal (under apartheid) interracial relationship. colludes with the Duke of Hastings. The basis of the Read by the author. 8 hours, 50 minutes perspectives of 13-to-18-year-olds on race, lockdown Netflix series “Bridgerton.” Read by Rosalyn Landor. unabridged. 12 hours, 9 minutes unabridged. drills, immigration, Covid-19, social media, and more. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE, by Bessel van der 3 WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, by Delia Owens. 28 13 Kolk. (Gildan Media) How trauma affects the body 13 (Penguin Audio) A young woman who survived and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery. alone in the marsh becomes a murder suspect. Read by Sean Pratt. 16 hours, 17 minutes Read by Cassandra Campbell. 12 hours, 12 unabridged. Also available as a 2-book set with Raising minutes unabridged. MY OWN WORDS, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with 6 Student Voice , a guide with classroom-ready THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE, by V. E. 3 14 Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams. (Simon 14 Schwab. (Macmillan Audio) A Faustian bargain & Schuster Audio) A collection of articles and activities, writing prompts, and a sample essay comes with a curse that affects the adventure speeches by the Supreme Court justice. Read by Addie LaRue has across centuries. Read by Julia Linda Lavin. 13 hours, 16 minutes unabridged. annotated by Times judges. Whelan. 17 hours, 10 minutes unabridged. THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, by Isabel 1 READY PLAYER ONE, by Ernest Cline. (Random 8 15 Wilkerson. (Brilliance) An account of the Great 15 House Audio) In 2044, the key to a vast fortune Migration of 1915-70, in which six million African- is hidden in a virtual-reality world. Read by Wil Americans abandoned the South. Read by Robin Wheaton. 15 hours, 46 minutes unabridged. Miles. 22 hours, 44 minutes unabridged.

Audiobook rankings are composed of sales in the United States of digital and physical audio products from the previous month. Sales of titles are statistically weighted to represent and accurately reflect all outlets proportionally nationwide. Free-trial or low-cost trial audiobook sales are not eligible for inclusion. Publisher credits for audiobooks are listed under the audiobook publisher name. ONLINE: For more lists and a full explanation of our methodology, visit www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers. THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 21 The Shortlist / After the Pandemic / By Zachary Karabell

THE CORONA CRASH LIFE AFTER COVID-19 POST CORONA THE NEW GREAT DEPRESSION How the Pandemic Will Change Lessons From Past Pandemics From Crisis to Opportunity Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic Capitalism By Bob Gordon By Scott Galloway World By Grace Blakeley 200 pp. Banovallum. $22.99. 256 pp. Portfolio. $25. By James Rickards 112 pp. Verso. Paper, $14.95. 208 pp. Portfolio. $29. In our world of constant By now, it has become in- The chasm between just how immediacy, it’s easy to forget creasingly evident that the It is now common to speak of well some have thrived eco- that all is not new under the pandemic has accelerated the Covid recession, but for nomically during the pan- sun. This is the first pan- multiple trends that were Rickards, a longtime finan- demic and just how badly demic of our lifetimes, but it currents before Covid and cial author and stock market others have fared is among is neither unique nor espe- have become tidal waves skeptic, the assorted policy the more startling results of cially deadly compared with because of it. The shift to the responses to the pandemic in this annus horribilis. But pandemics past. digital world, already in play over the the United States and else- where some see the disease as upending Gordon, a Canadian author, takes us on past decade, has become tectonic. where have produced a new Great De- some industries (travel and restaurants) a world tour of previous pandemics, Few are better positioned to illuminate pression, one that has hurt the working and boosting others (home entertainment starting with the 14th-century bubonic the vagaries of this transformation than class disproportionately. That means the and technology), Blakeley, an English plague. His danse macabre continues Galloway, a tech entrepreneur, author starry-eyed hope for a 2021 return to writer, Labour Party activist and leftist with the 17th-century Great Plague of and professor at New York University’s normal isn’t going to happen: “In depres- theorist, sees the have and have-not London and then through various typhus Stern School. In brisk prose and catchy sions, things don’t get back to normal divide as the latest and perhaps most and cholera outbreaks in the 19th century illustrations, he vividly demonstrates because there is no normal anymore.” egregious chapter of the sad story of through the Great Influenza of 1918-19. how the largest technology companies The destruction of service industries capitalism. At each point, the science and medicine turned the crisis of the pandemic into the caused by the lockdown and the rise of For Blakeley, the response to Covid is of the day proved woefully inadequate. market-share-grabbing opportunity of a technologies like telemedicine and tele- twined with the great financial crisis of Doctors and those who passed for lifetime. conferencing mean the damage to the old 2008-9: Then, states bailed out the finan- learned persistently misidentified the Galloway neither celebrates nor de- economy is likely to be permanent. cial industry; now, the state is bailing out way the various diseases were transmit- cries this, though he has little patience for This is not a book to read if you want all industry to maintain the system of ted. Another constant during pandemics the homilies of Silicon Valley that all reassurance: Rickards forecasts a 30- “monopoly capitalism.” While she ac- was and is the predilection of the wealthy disruption is for the best; he recognizes year period of lower growth. The knowledges that no government could to flee urban areas, leaving the poor and that the pandemic makes it even harder predilection of governments to take on just let the system collapse, she excori- vulnerable to cluster together and suffer to police the “bad behavior” of Big Tech. huge debt and to spend, he says, will only ates the way that officials have become the worst ravages. He also notes that one industry ripe for make the recovery more sluggish. While handmaidens to corporations, which have Gordon is at his best in these thumbnail disruption that has resisted it until now civilizational collapse is not likely, it pocketed the free money of central banks sketches. When he turns to the lessons of — higher education — may finally have should not be ruled out as a possibility. while millions of individuals go further the present, he is on thinner ground and its day of economic reckoning. That may Given his longtime bearishness about into debt. That, in turn, has led not to a his observations about the digital trans- imperil some institutions but could well financial markets, it’s not surprising that desirable reversal of globalization, but to formation of industry and the work-from- unleash a new era of education. Rickards ends with an investment menu even more advantages for the “Global home revolution become more familiar. Galloway fears, rightly, that all of the heavy on cash, commodities and gold and North” and even less latitude for the Given the current pace of change, even spending and government intervention light on paper assets like stocks and “Global South.” an instabook can feel dated: Gordon may serve only to embed dominant com- bonds. We all tend to read crises through The only solution, she believes, is an wrote over the summer, when vaccines panies. His call for more competition in the lens of our prior beliefs; for Rickards, enormous global Green New Deal. It seemed years rather than months away an age of tech consolidation is laudable, an economic system built on central would be hard to find a purer iteration of and when it appeared that Covid might but even with antitrust measures now banks and fiat money had been itching the socialist critique of modern capital- be the defining feature of all societies for being taken, how that is to be achieved for a reckoning long before 2020. Gold ism in a pandemic age. Blakeley’s passion years to come. remains elusive. was his answer before the crisis, and gold as a polemicist notwithstanding, if you is the answer now. It would be comforting don’t share her sensibility, it’s unlikely to think that the solutions were so elegant that this book will change your mind. and simple.

ZACHARY KARABELL’S most recent book is the forthcoming “Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power.”

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN GALL 22 SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2021 Sketchbook / D.I.Why? / By Leanne Shapton and Teddy Blanks We’ve come a long, exhausted way from trying to make the best of it.

LEANNE SHAPTON is the author, most recently, of “Guestbook.” TEDDY BLANKS is a co-founder of the Brooklyn-based graphic design studio CHIPS.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 23 Ille ~ou Uoxk mu. Even1s Understand today. Together.

Jcf us ~.a ... 1 ewent. &we at home. Get 1t1e story. 1irsthal'ld. Hear rwilBI v.oiras, in theirown words. Mak:e tlM!' mm or ~ mamart, wrltl e:muswe e:tpeliel'D:!S jl.ISI 1ta' sut6cril:Ea OJrmectwittl ,..our "1t11r1dl am:I tie peopte ShaPifV il

~ore tll& 1.-'SCtledUl!.. 1fmese.-erts.nytimes...com

1j